Strand, Satan & Stevens

I go into reading Mark Strand's poetry optimistically. I am rooting for him. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps it is his smiling face peering back at me from the book jacket, apparently happy and perhaps jovial. I do not find what I expect. Circularity, gloom, flux, and inevitability are waiting for my arrival. I greet them in The Dance.

I could pull some fantastic BS out of this poem. One example is that he is talking about the fall of Lucifer. In the first stanza he is the shining light of line two; an archangel in heaven. In line three of the second stanza we witness the result of his rebellion in heaven: "The light falls like an anchor..." The third stanza shows his new home in Hell, the "burning house" of line 12. Of course the chances of this explication being an accurate representation of Strand's thoughts while composing this piece are slight. I did it for fun and to show that one has to address the entire poem when theorizing about its meaning. Although I'm liking the biblical idea more as I reread this.

The Dance is a great example of how Strand might deceive the reader into thinking that maybe this will be the poem that doesn't end in the dark or with death. That last line about being borne into Heaven is uplifting, right? Not so much. Keep in mind that it has been preceded by the first two stanzas ending with "one foot in the grave" and "being pulled down constantly." He is not be optimistic in the final line, but saying that although we may pull ourselves up out of death and despair, we'll end up right back there eventually. This refers back to the idea of circuity in Strand's poems. If he had said borne again in stead of "again and again," I might believe he was speaking of redemption or ascending to Heaven after death. By repeating that word though, he assures the reader that the cycle of falling will continue.

Also typical in much of his work is the change in perspective of the poet, the flux, if you will, from one sense of being to another. Here the poet sees himself from out of body then experiences such a transition when "Slowly I dance out of the burning house of my head."

I, for one, am thrilled at the disappointment regarding my baseless expectations of Mark Strand. Happy-go-lucky poetry doesn't suit me the way decent parenting doesn't suit Dina Lohan. I love that he manages to communicate his unsettling strangeness through clear and coherent language. He is at once accessible and aloof. Thank goodness that he wasn't such a good painter, and that he happened upon "The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens" during his years before writing.