A Conversation with Mark Strand (interview by Ernie Hilbert)
In 1997, as the Editor of the Oxford Quarterly, I had the pleasure of publishing Mark Strand's poem "What It Was," which later appeared in his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Blizzard of One. Nearly three years later, after reading Blizzard of One, I decided to call him in order to speak briefly and informally about some of the poems in the collection as well as some of the pieces in his new book of essays entitled The Weather of Words.
You've always cultivated a well-known involvement with art and artists. In Blizzard of One there are two villanelles on works by the Italian surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico, "The Philosopher's Conquest" and "The Disquieting Muses". What drew you to de Chirico?
The Art Institute [of Chicago] asked a number of writers to choose a painting from their collection to write a prose piece or a poem about. Around the same time, the University of Iowa Museum asked me for something along the same lines. Iowa had a de Chirico and so did Chicago. So I thought I'd give it a try, and I decided on the form of a villanelle. The lines keep coming back, and in de Chirico's paintings you have the same things coming back, the flags, the towers, the boats, the trains, the shadows, long shadows. So I chose the form that I thought came closest to the painting's spirit.
As a means of furnishing a voice for static form, do you think that the villanelle is particularly suited to describing paintings in general or just de Chirico's works?
There's something very static about de Chirico's paintings. His later style became much more illustrative, ersatz classical, whereas there was something truly spooky, eerie, chilling about his paintings between 1911 and 1919. I don't think a villanelle would work for many painters. I associated it specifically with de Chirico. If someone were to write one on Jackson Pollock, for instance, I suppose free verse would be the best.
The third section of Blizzard of One consists of a series of poems entitled Five Dogs. It is a very strong and touching series of poems written partly from the viewpoints of five dogs, who grieve for something they seem to have lost. Could you say a few words about it?
First of all it's absurd to have dogs that speak. The first dog, Spot, is me. They're all poets. Spot is a Mark, a mark is a spot. I've always tried to be both humorous and serious at the same time. You can get away with a lot more if a dog is speaking in the poem. If the dog is talking, the dog can say anything, things that a human being might be embarrassed to say.
What of the dog, Rex, the "last of the platinum / Retrievers, the last of a gorgeous line"? He seems to be the last of a noble and elegant age; perhaps he is lamenting the end of an aristocratic ancestry or pedigree. Were you thinking of anyone in particular?
I was thinking of myself, but that's really too self-aggrandizing. I sometimes think of myself as the youngest member of a generation, or I could be the oldest of the next generation [laughs]. I feel like I'm in between. But I didn't really have anyone in mind. I just wanted Rex to say "Forget. Forget."
In your new book Weather of Words there is a piece entitled "The President's Resignation", a transcript of an imagined presidential resignation speech. You have mentioned in the past that you had Wallace Stevens in mind when you wrote "The President's Resignation".
Well, I always have him in mind. It's not entirely Stevens. Stevens, as most poets are, was attuned to the weather. If the President spent as much time thinking about the weather as poets think about it, he might end up being the person I invented for that story. It was my first published story and in fact the first story I ever wrote. I needed money. I was living in New York. Howard Moss [former poetry editor of the New Yorker] was my editor at the time. He told me to write some fiction, told me I could make some money that way. So I wrote "The President's Resignation" and they bought it. Then they bought the next and the next and the next, then I got a contract and a bonus. Then they started turning me down [laughs].
Your new book The Weather of Words begins with "A Poet's Alphabet". What is the history of that very entertaining piece.
I gave it as a lecture at Breadloaf [the Breadloaf Writer's Conference]. I kept changing it. I rewrote it and fooled with it over the years. I don't think any of the original remains. My favorite is "A for Absence." I'm rather absent out in here in California [on vacation]. I like LA. After New York, it's my favorite city, in part because it's so funky. It's a hodge-podge of styles, from buildings to the people to the shoes. It's fun.
You've always cultivated a well-known involvement with art and artists. In Blizzard of One there are two villanelles on works by the Italian surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico, "The Philosopher's Conquest" and "The Disquieting Muses". What drew you to de Chirico?
The Art Institute [of Chicago] asked a number of writers to choose a painting from their collection to write a prose piece or a poem about. Around the same time, the University of Iowa Museum asked me for something along the same lines. Iowa had a de Chirico and so did Chicago. So I thought I'd give it a try, and I decided on the form of a villanelle. The lines keep coming back, and in de Chirico's paintings you have the same things coming back, the flags, the towers, the boats, the trains, the shadows, long shadows. So I chose the form that I thought came closest to the painting's spirit.
As a means of furnishing a voice for static form, do you think that the villanelle is particularly suited to describing paintings in general or just de Chirico's works?
There's something very static about de Chirico's paintings. His later style became much more illustrative, ersatz classical, whereas there was something truly spooky, eerie, chilling about his paintings between 1911 and 1919. I don't think a villanelle would work for many painters. I associated it specifically with de Chirico. If someone were to write one on Jackson Pollock, for instance, I suppose free verse would be the best.
The third section of Blizzard of One consists of a series of poems entitled Five Dogs. It is a very strong and touching series of poems written partly from the viewpoints of five dogs, who grieve for something they seem to have lost. Could you say a few words about it?
First of all it's absurd to have dogs that speak. The first dog, Spot, is me. They're all poets. Spot is a Mark, a mark is a spot. I've always tried to be both humorous and serious at the same time. You can get away with a lot more if a dog is speaking in the poem. If the dog is talking, the dog can say anything, things that a human being might be embarrassed to say.
What of the dog, Rex, the "last of the platinum / Retrievers, the last of a gorgeous line"? He seems to be the last of a noble and elegant age; perhaps he is lamenting the end of an aristocratic ancestry or pedigree. Were you thinking of anyone in particular?
I was thinking of myself, but that's really too self-aggrandizing. I sometimes think of myself as the youngest member of a generation, or I could be the oldest of the next generation [laughs]. I feel like I'm in between. But I didn't really have anyone in mind. I just wanted Rex to say "Forget. Forget."
In your new book Weather of Words there is a piece entitled "The President's Resignation", a transcript of an imagined presidential resignation speech. You have mentioned in the past that you had Wallace Stevens in mind when you wrote "The President's Resignation".
Well, I always have him in mind. It's not entirely Stevens. Stevens, as most poets are, was attuned to the weather. If the President spent as much time thinking about the weather as poets think about it, he might end up being the person I invented for that story. It was my first published story and in fact the first story I ever wrote. I needed money. I was living in New York. Howard Moss [former poetry editor of the New Yorker] was my editor at the time. He told me to write some fiction, told me I could make some money that way. So I wrote "The President's Resignation" and they bought it. Then they bought the next and the next and the next, then I got a contract and a bonus. Then they started turning me down [laughs].
Your new book The Weather of Words begins with "A Poet's Alphabet". What is the history of that very entertaining piece.
I gave it as a lecture at Breadloaf [the Breadloaf Writer's Conference]. I kept changing it. I rewrote it and fooled with it over the years. I don't think any of the original remains. My favorite is "A for Absence." I'm rather absent out in here in California [on vacation]. I like LA. After New York, it's my favorite city, in part because it's so funky. It's a hodge-podge of styles, from buildings to the people to the shoes. It's fun.
From Bold Type
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