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Eating Poetry

by Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does no believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
 The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Analysis of Eating Poetry by Mark Strand
Analysis by Florence Lumsden

In Strand’s poem, “Eating Poetry,” he expresses the ways in which he loves poetry by using an extended metaphor of him eating poetry and becoming a dog hungry for poetry. While in the library, he literally eats all the poetry and the librarian gets upset: “ When I get on my knees and lick her hand,/ she screams./ I am a new man./I snarl at her and bark.” In these lines, Strand creates the image of becoming desperate for more poetry. So desperate that he acts like a dog, barking and licking the librarian’s hands.  He depicts haunting images of snarling dogs and crying Librarians, therefore giving the sense that Poetry has a frightening power.  Strand depicts the power that poetry has over him and how poetry can literally transform you.

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From Dark Harbor

 by Mark Strand.

It is true, as someone has said, that in
A world without heaven all in farewell
Whether you wave your hand or not,

It is farewell, and if no tears come to your eyes
It is still farewell, and if you pretend not to notice,
Hating what passes, it is still farewell.

Farewell no matter what. And the palms as they lean
Over the green, bright lagoon, and the pelicans
Diving, and the glistening bodies of bathers resting,

Are stages in an ultimate stillness, and the movement
Of sand, and of wind, and the secret moves of the body
Are part of the same, a simplicity that turns being

Into an occasion for mourning, or into an occasion
Worth celebrating, for what else does one do,
Feeling the weight of the pelicans’ wings,

The density of the palms’ shadows, the cells that darken
The backs of bathers? These are beyond the distortions
Of chance, beyond the evasions of music. The end.

Is enacted again and again. And we feel it|
In the temptations of sleep, in the moon’s ripening
In the wine as it waits in the glass.

Is it you standing among the olive trees
Beyond the courtyard? You in the sunlight
Waving me closer with one hand while the other

Shields your eyes from the brightness that turns
All that is not you  dead white? Is it you
Around whom the leaves scatter like foam?

Analyzing From Dark Harbor by Mark Strand
Analysis by Florence Lumsden

            In Strand’s poem “From Dark Harbor” death, and the ways in which people deal with death, are described through strong imagery. The poem contains an extended metaphor about how saying goodbye or farewell, like death, is undeniable. In this poem, Strand speaks about the occasion of death, celebration or mourning. It also tells of when feels death upon us. Strand’s opinion about death is illustrated here: “It is true, as someone has said, that in/ a world without heaven all is farewell.” Therefore, the overall meaning of the poem is that we should live our lives as though it is heaven, and not wait for death to reach heaven. When Strand talks of death haunting us and death being uncontrollable, he means to scare the reader. Yet in doing so, he is reminding us that we should live our lives to the fullest because we don’t know what death holds for us.