{"id":873,"date":"2014-11-24T12:38:32","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T17:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/?p=873"},"modified":"2014-11-24T12:37:46","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T17:37:46","slug":"field-work-towards-a-vivid-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/2014\/11\/24\/field-work-towards-a-vivid-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Field Work: Towards a Vivid World"},"content":{"rendered":"<script>fsg_json['fsg_post_873'] = [\n{id: 882, image: 'http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2014\/11\/Medium-800.jpg', extlink: '', thumb: 'https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2014\/11\/Medium-800-290x290.jpg', permalink: '<div class=\"galleria-layeritem\"><a title=\"Permalink\" href=\"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/2014\/11\/24\/field-work-towards-a-vivid-world\/medium-800\/#0\"><div class=\"galleria-link-bookmark\"><\/div><\/a><\/div>', layer: '<div class=\"galleria-infolayer\"><div class=\"galleria-layeritem\" style=\"padding-right: 20px;\"><h1>Mark Strand<\/h1><\/div><div class=\"galleria-layeritem\"><a title=\"Permalink\" href=\"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/2014\/11\/24\/field-work-towards-a-vivid-world\/medium-800\/#0\"><div class=\"galleria-link-bookmark\"><\/div><\/a><\/div><div class=\"galleria-layeritem\" style=\"padding-right: 20px;\"><\/div>'}\n];<\/script>\n<pre><strong>The Annual Elizabeth Bishop Poetry Reading: Mark Strand<\/strong>\r\n<strong>November 6, 2014\r\n<span style=\"font-size: x-small\">funded courtesy of Priscilla H. Rockwell \u201947 and the late H.P. Davis Rockwell<\/span>\r\n<\/strong><\/pre>\n<div id=\"attachment_882\" style=\"width: 238px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a data-postid=\"fsg_post_873\" data-imgid=\"882\" href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2014\/11\/Medium-800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-882\" class=\"wp-image-882 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2014\/11\/Medium-800-228x300.jpg\" alt=\"Medium 800\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2014\/11\/Medium-800-228x300.jpg 228w, https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2014\/11\/Medium-800.jpg 609w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 228px) 100vw, 228px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-882\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small\">\u00a9Sarah Shatz<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Named a MacArthur Fellow in 1987, appointed as the U.S. Poet Laureate in 1990, and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, et al., now at the age of eighty Mark Strand has, to some debate, stopped writing poetry.<\/p>\n<p>This is the man who gave Vassar English Department\u2019s annual Elizabeth Bishop Poetry Reading, and shared with us works from his entire career through his newest collection <em>Almost Invisible<\/em> (2012), a series of \u201cprose-poems,\u201d that he insists are simply prose.<\/p>\n<p>To give you a better idea of the man and the night itself, it opened with a heartfelt anecdote by Professor Paul Kane; his words here will do more justice than my own:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small\">It so happens that, as a tender sophomore at Yale in 1970, I had signed up for a poetry seminar with a new poet we were all crazy about. To be accepted into the class, you had to submit poems and undergo an interview. I showed up to my interview&#8230;and sat down before a tall, elegant figure seated behind a desk. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d said the man, \u201cbut Mark Strand couldn\u2019t be here today and asked if I would conduct the interviews for him instead.\u201d With some puzzlement and not a little surprise, I finally stammered out, \u201cBut, but you are Mark Strand.\u201d With a sigh, and a slight shake of his head, he replied, \u201cI\u2019m so tired of being Mark Strand.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Professor Kane\u2019s recollection itself captures the mood of not only the evening, somewhere between the space of comedy and elegy, but also of Strand and his writing. Always known for navigating a liminal space and one that relies on repudiation, <em>Almost Invisible<\/em> (which he read heavily from), as its title suggests, is no different. Even the cover photo by Vincent Laforet illustrates an uncanny clash of environments, where nature struggles for its indigenous place.<\/p>\n<p>Through the reading and into the Q&amp;A Strand commented humorlessly on his age and career, \u201cI\u2019ve been exceedingly lucky&#8230;of course I\u2019ve been around a long time&#8230;\u201d He spoke poignantly of his own experiences and philosophies, of the visible world of \u201cMark Strand,\u201d the renowned contemporary poet, and that of the Mark Strand who goes on living day-to-day, who buys groceries, the one who keeps living and aging between his public appearances.<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t difficult for me to say that Strand is a perfect reader of his own work, as his voice, solemn, effortlessly gave new breath to his terse, surreal, sometimes humorous and sometimes melancholic texts. A specific highlight from the occasion included him reciting from memory his eminent poem \u201cKeeping Things Whole\u201d (<em>Selected Poems<\/em> 1979, 1980), which begins:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;padding-left: 60px\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small\">In a field<br \/>\nI am the absence<br \/>\nof field.<br \/>\nThis is<br \/>\nalways the case.<br \/>\nWherever I am<br \/>\nI am what is missing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>He commented amusingly on the status of this poem, stating if he knew beforehand how often his career would be reduced to the single piece he would have just stopped writing then and there.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_900\" style=\"width: 230px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2014\/11\/9780307957313_vert-75ddcd8d24f98c2455a084c0e54612f324512a3a-s99-c85-e1416002227652.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-900\" class=\"wp-image-900 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/files\/2014\/11\/9780307957313_vert-75ddcd8d24f98c2455a084c0e54612f324512a3a-s99-c85-220x300.jpg\" alt=\"9780307957313_vert-75ddcd8d24f98c2455a084c0e54612f324512a3a-s99-c85\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-900\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2012\/05\/03\/151438518\/almost-invisible-new-poems-from-mark-strand\">npr.org<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>So to not reduce Strand to \u201cKeeping Things Whole\u201d yet again, I\u2019m brought towards another he recited so sincerely, a piece from <em>Almost Invisible<\/em> entitled \u201cProvisional Eternity;\u201d it reads:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small\">A man and a woman lay in bed. \u2018Just one more time,\u2019 said the man, \u2018just one more time.\u2019 Why do you keep saying that?\u2019 said the woman. \u2018Because I never want it to end,\u2019 said the man. \u2018What don\u2019t you want to end?\u2019 said the woman. \u2018This,\u2019 said the man, \u2018this never wanting it to end.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Honestly, it\u2019s difficult to summarize a night that was at its least \u201cthought-provoking;\u201d even that term diminishes the event and Strand himself to too little. As a poet I myself was moved by Strand\u2019s natural composure, and from his responses, also effortless yet incredibly provocative. One such response that I recorded was prompted when an audience member asked Strand what he took from being a poet despite giving it up. Strand said, \u201cPoetry has given me the desire to pay attention&#8230;I live in a more vivid world as a result of being a poet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Going back, Professor Kane proceeded in his introduction to state, \u201cWe, of course, have never tired of Mark Strand&#8230;\u201d I can do little more than echo this sentiment, especially in the face of Strand\u2019s self-declared tiredness of poetry and of \u201cMark Strand.\u201d It\u2019s not surprising then that Strand has said he doesn\u2019t read much contemporary poetry anymore, and if he does read anything at all he looks back to the poets he used to read, such as Wallace Stevens.<\/p>\n<p>Strand is thus that poet for today\u2019s awake poets. A poet who will keep writers looking back so to keep moving forward, writers hoping they can at least grasp what Mark Strand so wonderfully and so frequently did grasp\u23afa more vivid world.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Annual Elizabeth Bishop Poetry Reading: Mark Strand November 6, 2014 funded courtesy of Priscilla H. Rockwell \u201947 and the late H.P. Davis Rockwell Named a MacArthur Fellow in 1987, <a href=\"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/2014\/11\/24\/field-work-towards-a-vivid-world\/\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"sr-only\">Read more about Field Work: Towards a Vivid World<\/span>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2790,"featured_media":882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[68818],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-creative-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2790"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1002,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/1002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/creativearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}