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Studying painting until turning to poetry in his twenties, Mark Strand moved from one art to another without premeditation. Strand’s early poetry explores consciousness and is deeply focused on observing the world as well as understanding the darker aspects of life. His poem “Reasons for Moving,” which comes out of his first book (published in 1968) under the same title, makes us aware of something typically cast to the unconscious. Strand’s careful use of structure, diction, and syntax all contribute to the elemental sense of movement conveyed in the poem. He won the Pulitzer Prize for one of his more recent volumes of poetry, A Blizzard of One (1998).

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