Mark Strand was born in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada, and was raised and educated in the United States. He has written nine books of poems, which have brought him many honors and grants, including a MacArthur Fellowship and the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Blizzard of One. He was chosen as Poet Laureate of the United States in 1990. He is also the author of a book of stories, Mr. and Mrs. Baby, several volumes of translations (works by Raphael Alberti and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, among others), the editor of a number of anthologies, and the author of two monographs on contemporary artists (William Bailey and Edward Hopper). He teaches in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
A primer on the magnanimity of poetry, with selected essays, criticism, reflections and inventions. Together they form a creed, which is this: A poem is the unassailable expression of what cannot be expressed in any other way... Poetry is ubiquitous and contagious, hilarious and holy; it bewitches children and converts housewives. Few American poets still write with joy and charmed irony, but in Strand the elation had not diminished. --Sara Miller, <i>Chicago Tribune</i>