Collected Poems Quotes

“Each moment is a place you’ve never been.”
― Mark Strand, Collected Poems of Mark Strand

“To Himself"

So you've come to me now without knowing why;
Nor why you sit in the ruby plush of an ugly chair, the sly
Revealing angle of light turning your hair a silver gray;
Nor why you have chosen this moment to set the writing of years
Against the writing of nothing; you who narrowed your eyes,
Peering into the polished air of the hallway mirror, and said
You were mine, all mine; who begged me to write, but always
Of course to you, without ever saying what it was for;
Who used to whisper in my ear only the things
You wanted to hear; who comes to me now and says
That it's late, that the trees are bending under the wind,
That night will fall; as if there were something
You wanted to know, but for years had forgotten to ask,
Something to do with sunlight slanting over a table
And chair, an arm rising, a face turning, and far
In the distance a car disappearing over the hill.

Mark Strand, Collected Poems. (Knopf; First Edition edition September 30, 2014)”
― Mark Strand, Collected Poems

“I wanted to go on an immense journey, to travel night and day into the unknown until, forgetting my old self, I came into possession of a new self, one that I might have missed on my previous travels. But the first step was beyond me. I lay in bed, unable to move, pondering, as one does at my age, the ways of melancholy—how it seeps into the spirit, how it disincarnates the will, how it banishes the senses to the chill of twilight, how even the best and worst intentions wither in its keep. I kept staring at the ceiling, then suddenly felt a blast of cold air, and I was gone.

— Mark Strand, “When I turned A Hundred,” Collected Poems. ( Knopf, 2014)”
― Mark Strand, Collected Poems

“YOU CAN ALWAYS GET THERE FROM HERE A traveler returned to the country from which he had started many years before. When he stepped from the boat, he noticed how different everything was. There were once many buildings, but now there were few and each of them needed repair. In the park where he played as a child, dust-filled shafts of sunlight struck the tawny leaves of trees and withered hedges. Empty trash bags littered the grass. The air was heavy. He sat on one of the benches and explained to the woman next to him that he’d been away a long time, then asked her what season had he come back to. She replied that it was the only one left, the one they all had agreed on.”
― Mark Strand, Collected Poems of Mark Strand

“We are reading the story of our lives as though we were in it, as though we had written it.”
― Mark Strand, Collected Poems of Mark Strand

“I walk
into what light
there is

— Mark Strand, from “Another Place,” Collected Poems (Knopf Doubleday, 2014)”
― Mark Strand, Collected Poems

“by being both here and beyond
I am becoming a horizon

from “The Man in the Mirror”
― Mark Strand, Collected Poems

“And yet Nothing here is certain;”
― Mark Strand, Collected Poems of Mark Strand

“ANYWHERE COULD BE SOMEWHERE I might have come from the high country, or maybe the low country, I don’t recall which. I might have come from the city, but what city in what country is beyond me. I might have come from the outskirts of a city from which others have come or maybe a city from which only I have come. Who’s to know? Who’s to decide if it rained or the sun was out? Who’s to remember? They say things are happening at the border, but nobody knows which border. They talk of a hotel there, where it doesn’t matter if you forgot your suitcase, another will be waiting, big enough, and just for you.”
― Mark Strand, Collected Poems of Mark Strand