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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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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FURTHER READING
Poems Teens Like
Howl, Parts I & II
by Allen Ginsberg
A Muse
by Reginald Shepherd
Alice at Seventeen: Like a Blind Child
by Darcy Cummings
Ave Maria
by Frank O'Hara
Ballad
by Sonia Sanchez
Charlotte Brontë in Leeds Point
by Stephen Dunn
Cicada
by John Blair
Dangerous for Girls
by Connie Voisine
Deer Hit
by Jon Loomis
Falling
by James Dickey
Ground Swell
by Mark Jarman
homage to my hips
by Lucille Clifton
Hyper-
by David Baker
In Knowledge of Young Boys
by Toi Derricotte
Lady Tactics
by Anne Waldman
Mairsy and Dosey
by Sharon Olds
Making a Fist
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Mermaid Song
by Kim Addonizio
Miracle Ice Cream
by Adrienne Rich
Notes from the Other Side
by Jane Kenyon
Patience
by Kay Ryan
Persephone, Falling
by Rita Dove
Possum Crossing
by Nikki Giovanni
Sticks
by Thomas Sayers Ellis
Thanks
by W. S. Merwin
That Sure is My Little Dog
by Eleanor Lerman
The Changing Light
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Fist
by Derek Walcott
The New Higher
by John Ashbery
The Pomegranate
by Eavan Boland
The Wild Iris
by Louise Glück
The Young Man's Song
by W. B. Yeats
White Apples
by Donald Hall
Who Will Know Us?
by Gary Soto
Workshop
by Billy Collins
Related Prose
Ars Poetica: Poems about Poetry
Poems for Teens
Adopt a Poet | Add to Notebook | E-mail to Friend | Print
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 not 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. 



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From Selected Poems by Mark Strand. Copyright © 1979, 1980 by Mark Strand. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
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