b2b
I am driven by innocence.
From bed to chair
I
crawl
and back again.
I
shall not die.
The grave result
and token of birth, my body
remembers and holds fast.
ALAN HELMS
Those sullen assertions and blunt rhythms, the fatigue of that initial
catalogue with its ominously disquieting imagery, the stubbornness of the
voice, evident even in the title, the discomforting associations of "uncon–
trollable," "crawl," "grave," and "token" - these are just a few of the
qualities which demonstrate the emergence of a powerfully original
poetic voice.
Although Strand has clearly come into his own in
Darker,
he bears
comparison with Dickinson in one final respect - the reiterated con–
viction which runs throughout his book that endings are often the dis–
guised preludes to new beginnings. "I praise the pain of revival and
the bliss of decline," Strand sings in one of the remarkably beautiful
chants. And in the most successful poems in this book ("My Life," "My
Life By Somebody Else," "The Remains"), it is often the renewed and
renewing conflict between revival and decline that renders this poetry
S8
compellingly attractive and alive. Life is a constantly dangerous busi–
ness in Strand's world, and the present is most perilous of all: "Nothing
will tell you / where you are) Each moment is a place/ you\'e never
been.. . . The present is always dark ) Its maps are black, / rising from
nothing,/ describing) in their slow ascent/ into themselves,/ their own
voyage, / its emptiness,/ the bleak, temperate/ necessity of its com–
pletion."
In documenting that dark present and "the bleak, temperate/
necessity of its completion ," Strand's best poetry achieyes such lumin–
ous insight into his own condition and the continual process of "be–
ginning again without anything" that self-recognition becomes reyela–
tion and delight is transfigured into ecstasy. Far from being merely
confessional poems ( though deeply personal poems ) , Strand's best work
is so cleared of the muck and decor of "personality'" so pared to the
bones of the speaker's essential humanity. that reading this volume is
like scanning the logbook of a priyate soul. This is a poetry of high
artifice and strong passion, and Strand's powerfully original voice will
find resonant echoes in the minds of his readers. In "The Guardian,"
Strand apostrophizes the figure of the title: "Guardian of my death,/
preserve my absence. I all1 alive." He certainly
IS.
Buy a copy of
Darker.
Support Mark Strand. He's
very
good.
Alan Helms
