Read the “On Becoming a Poet,” by Mark Strand and answer the questions in the document Link of the reading: https://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/strand/poetsonpoetry.html
Questions for “On Becoming a Poet,” by Mark Strand (in your anthology)
Part I
What was the essential appeal of the poem “You, Andrew Marvell” to the writer when he was an adolescent?
Strand discusses the poem at length from a more mature and informed perspective. What are some aspects of the poem he draws our attention to? What elements contribute to the quality of “circularity”?
Part II
Strand says, “something beyond knowledge compels our interest and our ability to be moved by a poem.” What does that mean to you? Do you agree?
What does he say about the connection between privacy and universality in some poetry? About how a poem can speak to us with an immediacy, even if it was written long ago?
Part III
What is the quality, the experience, of good poetry, according to Strand?
What do you understand him to mean by the statement, “It allows us to have the life we are denied because we are too busy living. Even more paradoxically, a poem permits us to live in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves.” Don’t try to interpret Strand here, but consider what this might mean to you.
Your experience
Have you ever read a work of poetry or prose that you actually wished you had written? If so, what is it – and what connection do you feel to the words?
