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Mark Strand
Mark Strand
Mark Strand was born on Canada's Prince Edward Island in 1934, and was raised and educated in the United States and South America. He is both a former Poet Laureate of the United States and a former Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets...
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From the Long Sad Party Order Now Buy the CD  
by Mark Strand
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Someone was saying

something about shadows covering the field, about
how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning
and the morning goes.

Someone was saying
how the wind dies down but comes back,
how shells are the coffins of wind
but the weather continues.

It was a long night
and someone said something about the moon shedding its
white
on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead
but more of the same.

Someone mentioned
a city she had been in before the war, a room with two
candles
against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching.
We began to believe

the night would not end.
Someone was saying the music was over and no one had
noticed.
Then someone said something about the planets, about the
stars,
how small they were, how far away.



From The Late Hour by Mark Strand, published by Atheneum. Copyright © 1973 by Mark Strand. Used with permission.


Audio Clip
May 09, 1978
Guggenhiem Museum
From the Academy Audio Archive
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