Pulitzer Prize Poet visits IU

The room was filled with anticipation as students awaited Mark Strand, Pulitzer Prize winner, former Poet Laureate and the invited speaker for the College Arts and Humanities Institute.

The institute’s Director Andrea Ciccarelli interviewed Mark Strand on stage before he read from his prose and poems Thursday.

Strand joked about his writing process.

“I’d like to say going into the living room stark naked, jump and down. Open the window, make coffee, put all my clothes on, jump in the shower with all my clothes on, jump up and down, then I write,” Strand said to the audience. “But that’s not the case.”

Received with laughter, Strand discussed his preference of prose over poetry.
“I like writing prose more, maybe because I don’t have to revise it,” Strand said.
His poetry and prose has been well-received through the years.

“He is one of the best poets alive, not just of the English language,” said Ciccarelli.
Strand’s work, including drafts of poems, unpublished work, published work, translations and correspondence between other poets such as Octavio Paz, can be found in the Lilly Library.

“We have a very good research collection,” Rebecca Cape, head of Reference and Public Services at the Lilly Library said. “It’s good to see the process and creation of writing.”

After the reading, the IDS spoke to Strand about his favorite poet, the theme of solitude and his correspondence with Paz.

IDS The theme for this series is solitude. How do your poems connect with this theme?

STRAND I think solitude is the experience of everyone. It’s not really a theme, it’s the human condition. People are alone, they may be married, they may be surrounded by other people, but to the degree in which they live inside of themselves they experience solitude.

IDS I saw the Lilly Library has letters of correspondence between you and Octavio Paz. What where you corresponding about?

STRAND Octavio and I spent a summer in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and I also edited the American edition of Poesia en Movimiento. I met him over that and we became friends, and I admired him beyond almost any other human being. He’s not only a great poet, he’s the greatest prose stylist. He’s also the greatest gentlemen I’ve ever encountered. He’s so nice and courtly and has no arrogance. He treated me like an equal.

IDS Along those lines, why does the library have those letters and your works?

STRAND Because it’s a great library. The Lilly Library is one of those great libraries. And if you want your work to be preserved, this is the place.

IDS Who’s your favorite poet?
STRAND There are too many to go into. I have many favorite poets. It would be misleading to just name one.

IDS Is there one in particular that inspired you to be a poet?

STRAND I had an early infatuation with Wallace Stevens. And not so early, a continuous infatuation with Stevens. And one prose writer, Franz Kafka. So I really feel sometimes I was the child of Stevens and Kafka.

IDS What do you want your poems to do?
STRAND I want somebody when they finish reading a poem to say, “Ah that’s all.”