Mark Strand: Five Poems on the BOSTON REVIEW

Clear In the September Light

A man stands under a tree, looking at a small house not far away. He flaps his arms as if he were a bird, maybe signaling someone we cannot see. He could be yelling, but since we hear nothing, he probably is not. Now the wind sends a shiver through the tree, and flattens the grass. The man falls to his knees and pounds the ground with his fists. A dog comes and sits beside him, and the man stands, once again flapping his arms. What he does has nothing to do with me. His desperation is not my desperation. I do not stand under trees and look at small houses. I have no dog.

Chiaro nella luce di settembre


Un uomo fermo sotto un albero guarda una piccola casa non lungi. Sbatte le braccia come se fosse un uccello, forse fa dei segnali a qualcuno che non possiamo vedere.  Forse urla, ma dato che non sentiamo nulla, probabilmente non urla. Ora il vento manda un brivido attraverso l' albero, e appiattisce l'erba. L' uomo si inginocchia e colpisce la terra con i pugni. Arriva un cane che gli si accuccia accanto, e l' uomo sbatte di nuovo le braccia. Quel che egli fa non ha nulla a che fare con me. La sua disperazione non è la mia disperazione. Io non sto sotto gli alberi e non guardo piccole case. Io non ho nessun cane.

Traduzione A. Pancirolli






                                              F I V E P O E M S of Mark Strand

Commentary by Nicholas Christopher

The most alluring qualities in Strand’s early lyrics—clean lines, taut narratives, and carefully framed mise-en-scènes—also marks his most recent poems, which, with a deepened pathos and heightened polish, work over a good deal more of life lived, sights seen, women loved, children grown, friends dead or dying, and the author’s own mortality... 

...Strand absorbed the music of many illustrious precursors—Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, Giacomo Leopardi, Fernando Pessoa, Rafael Alberti (of whom he is our foremost English translator)—in shaping his own voice. He is also among the first and most important North American poets whose crucial influences were as much Latin American as European. Canadian by birth, widely traveled, Strand is, by training and instinct, among the most international of American poets.                                                    




from THE BOSTON REVIEW