Mark Strand Explained

Mark Strand
Birth Date:April 11, 1934
Birth Place:Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Death Place:Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Nationality:American, Canadian
Education:Antioch College (BA)
Yale University (BFA)
University of Iowa (MFA)

Mark Strand (April 11, 1934 – November 29, 2014) was a Canadian-born American poet, essayist and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990 and received the Wallace Stevens Award in 2004. Strand was a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University from 2005 until his death in 2014.

Biography

Strand was born in 1934 at Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Raised in a secular Jewish family,[1] [2] he spent his early years in North America and much of his adolescence in South and Central America. Strand graduated from Oakwood Friends School in 1951[3] [4] and in 1957 earned his B.A. from Antioch College in Ohio.[5] He then studied painting under Josef Albers at Yale University, where he earned a B.F.A in 1959.[5] On a U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission scholarship, Strand studied 19th-century Italian poetry in Florence in 1960–61.[5] He attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa the following year and earned a Master of Arts in 1962.[5] In 1965 he spent a year in Brazil as a Fulbright Lecturer.[6]

In 1981, Strand was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.[7] He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress during the 1990–91 term.[8] In 1997, he left Johns Hopkins University to accept the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professorship of Social Thought at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. From 2005 to his death, Strand taught literature and creative writing at Columbia University, in New York City.[5]

Strand received numerous awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987 and the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for Blizzard of One.[5]

Strand died of liposarcoma on November 29, 2014, in Brooklyn, New York.[9] [10]

Poetry

Many of Strand's poems are nostalgic in tone, evoking the bays, fields, boats, and pines of his Prince Edward Island childhood. He has been compared to Robert Bly in his use of surrealism, though he attributes his poems' surreal elements to an admiration of the works of Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, and René Magritte.[11] Strand's poems use plain and concrete language, usually without rhyme or meter. In a 1971 interview, he said, "I feel very much a part of a new international style that has a lot to do with plainness of diction, a certain reliance on surrealist techniques, and a strong narrative element."[11]

Academic career

Strand's academic career took him to various colleges and universities, including:[6]

Teaching positions

Visiting professor

Awards

Strand was awarded the following:

Bibliography

Poetry[6]

Collected Poems, Knopf

Prose[6]

Poetry translations

Editor

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Kevane. Bridgette. What Is Missing. Tablet Magazine. 3 December 2014. 29 June 2011.
  2. Web site: Italie. Hillel. Pulitzer laureate Mark Strand dies at 80. The Times of Israel. 3 December 2014. 30 November 2014.
  3. Web site: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mark Strand dies at 80. Associated Press. November 30, 2014. The Poughkeepsie Journal. July 6, 2015.
  4. Shawn. Wallace. Mark Strand, The Art of Poetry No. 77. The Paris Review. 3 December 2014. Fall 1998. Fall 1998 . 148 .
  5. News: Grimes. William. Mark Strand, 80, Dies; Pulitzer-Winning Poet Laureate. The New York Times. 29 November 2014. 29 November 2014.
  6. Web site: Mark Strand. Poetry Foundation. 3 December 2014.
  7. Web site: Deceased Members . . 3 December 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110726004624/http://www.artsandletters.org/academicians2_deceased.php . July 26, 2011 .
  8. Web site: Poet Laureate Timeline: 1991-2000 . . 2008 . 1 January 2009.
  9. Rivera. Joshua. Pulitzer-Winning Poet Laureate Mark Strand Dead at 80. Time. 3 December 2014. 30 November 2014.
  10. Web site: Mark Strand, former US poet laureate, dies aged 80. The Guardian. 3 December 2014. 30 November 2014.
  11. Book: Perkins. George. Perkins. Barbara. Contemporary American Literature. 1988. McGraw Hill. New York. 9780075549543. 953.
  12. Web site: The American Academy of Arts and Letters announces newly elected members and award winners. American Academy of Arts and Letters. April 14, 2009. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110617062819/http://www.artsandletters.org/press_releases/2009members.php. June 17, 2011. mdy-all.
  13. Web site: Mark Strand, UI Graduate 62MA (Former UI Faculty). The University of Iowa Alumni Association. 3 December 2014.
  14. Web site: Mark Strand. Academy of American Poets. 3 December 2014.