Quote of the Day

Each poem demands that I treat it differently from the rest, come to terms with it, seek out its own best beginning and ending. And yet, I would be kidding myself if I believed that nothing continuous existed in the transactions between myself and my poems. I suppose this is what we mean by craft, those transactions that become so continuous we not only associate ourselves with them, but allow them to represent the means by which we make art.

—Mark Strand, “Notes on the Craft of Poetry”

Quote of the Day

The purpose of the poem is not disclosure or storytelling or the telling of a daydream, nor is a poem a symptom. A poem is itself and is the act by which it is born; it is self-referential and is not necessarily preceded by any known order.

—Mark Strand, “Notes on the Craft of Poetry”