Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf.
Mark StrandA life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.
Mark StrandI don't really think it will make much difference to me when I'm dead whether I'm read or not . . . just as whether I'm dead or not won't mean much to me when I'm dead.
Mark StrandInk runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.
Mark Strand