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The Story of Our Lives

with The Monument and The Late Hour

Author Mark Strand
Paperback
$19.95 US
Knopf
On sale Feb 26, 2002 | 176 Pages | 9780375709753
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This book brings together for the first time three out-of-print works written in the 1970's by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet—-an essential for long-time and first-time readers alike.

It opens with the haunting "Elegy for My Father" from The Story of Our Lives (1973)—-a powerful evocation of the emptiness, abandonment, and questioning that the dead leave to the living—-and moves on to such poems as "Inside the Story," which illuminates the "insides" of love—-the unspoken conversations between lovers, the arbitrary rules with which we guide our relationships.

The witty prose pieces from The Monument (1978) act as a reflective pause between the two poetry collections, commenting upon the immortality of poetry and the harmonious connection between the writer and his future readers. And, flowing seamlessly from these meditations, The Late Hour (1978) exemplifies the timeless power of lyric poetry, bringing us eloquent, lilting poems about the irretrievable past, the redemptive power of love, and the mysterious cycles of human existence:

"Again the late hour, the moon and stars,
the wounds of night that heal without sound,
again the luminous wind of morning that comes before the sun..."
© Sarah Shatz

Mark Strand, born in 1934, was the author of many books of poems, a book of stories, and three volumes of translations, and was the editor of several anthologies. He received many honors and awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize (for Blizzard of One), the Bollingen Prize, and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990, he was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States. He died in 2014.

View titles by Mark Strand

About

This book brings together for the first time three out-of-print works written in the 1970's by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet—-an essential for long-time and first-time readers alike.

It opens with the haunting "Elegy for My Father" from The Story of Our Lives (1973)—-a powerful evocation of the emptiness, abandonment, and questioning that the dead leave to the living—-and moves on to such poems as "Inside the Story," which illuminates the "insides" of love—-the unspoken conversations between lovers, the arbitrary rules with which we guide our relationships.

The witty prose pieces from The Monument (1978) act as a reflective pause between the two poetry collections, commenting upon the immortality of poetry and the harmonious connection between the writer and his future readers. And, flowing seamlessly from these meditations, The Late Hour (1978) exemplifies the timeless power of lyric poetry, bringing us eloquent, lilting poems about the irretrievable past, the redemptive power of love, and the mysterious cycles of human existence:

"Again the late hour, the moon and stars,
the wounds of night that heal without sound,
again the luminous wind of morning that comes before the sun..."

Author

© Sarah Shatz

Mark Strand, born in 1934, was the author of many books of poems, a book of stories, and three volumes of translations, and was the editor of several anthologies. He received many honors and awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize (for Blizzard of One), the Bollingen Prize, and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990, he was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States. He died in 2014.

View titles by Mark Strand

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