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Dark Harbor
The poems in this book are easily recognizable as the work of one of our most interesting and influential poets, but there is an extra dimension justifying a claim for the whole as a unified poem. Each of the forty-five sections plays against the others, and although wide-ranging and with many moods and changes of tone, Dark Harbor is all of a piece.
- GenresPoetryNonfiction
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
4 people are currently reading
274 people want to read
About the author
Mark Strand
181 books267 followersMark Strand was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, essayist, and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990. He was a professor of English at Columbia University and also taught at numerous other colleges and universities.
Strand also wrote children's books and art criticism, helped edit several poetry anthologies and translated Spanish poet Rafael Alberti.
He is survived by a son, a daughter and a sister.
Strand also wrote children's books and art criticism, helped edit several poetry anthologies and translated Spanish poet Rafael Alberti.
He is survived by a son, a daughter and a sister.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
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August 29, 2018Discussed this book here: https://youtu.be/iwzwN2nt_JY
October 13, 2008
AMAZING. The more Strand I read, the more stunned I am. He tackles everything in this one long poem. I'll return to it again and again, I'm sure.
Read
April 16, 2025“Someone is playing a tape of birds singing.”
August 4, 2025
VII
O you can make fun of the splendors of moonlight,
But what would the human heart be if it wanted
Only the dark, wanted nothing on earth
But the sea’s ink or the rock’s black shade?
On a summer night to launch yourself into the silver
Emptiness of air and look over the pale fields
At rest under the sullen stare of the moon,
And to linger in the depths of your vision and wonder
How in this whiteness what you love is past
Grief, and how in the long valley of your looking
Hope grows, and there, under the distant,
Barely perceptible fire of all the stars,
To feel yourself wake into change, as if your change
Were immense and figured into the heavens’ longing.
And yet all you want is to rise out of the shade
Of yourself into the cooling blaze of a summer night
When the moon shines and the earth itself
Is covered and silent in the stoniness of its sleep.
XVIII
“I would like to step out of my heart’s door and be
Under the great sky.” I would like to step out
And be on the other side, and be part of all
That surrounds me. I would like to be
In that solitude of soundless things, in the random
Company of the wind, to be weightless, nameless.
But not for long, for I would be downcast without
The things I keep inside my heart; and in no time
I would be back. Ah! the old heart
In which I sleep, in which my sleep increases, in which
My grief is ponderous, in which the leaves are falling,
In which the streets are long, in which the night
Is dark, in which the sky is great, the old heart
That murmurs to me of what cannot go on,
Of the dancing, of the inmost dancing.
XXVIII
There is a luminousness, a convergence of enchantments,
And the world is altered for the better as trees,
Rivers, mountains, animals, all find their true place,
But only while Orpheus sings. When the song is over
The world resumes its old flaws, and things are again
Mismatched and misplaced and the cruelty of men
Is tempered only by laws. Orpheus can change the world
For a while, but he cannot save it, which is his despair.
It is a brilliant limitation he enacts and
He knows it, which is why the current of his song
Is always mournful, always sad. It is even worse
For the rest of us. As someone has said, “. . . we barely begin
And paralysis takes over, forcing us out for a breath
Of fresh air.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, he says,
“But though reams of work do get done, not much listens.
I have the feeling my voice is just for me . . .” There is
A current of resignation that charges even our most
Determined productions. Still, we feel better for trying,
And there is always a glass of wine to restore us
To our former majesty, to the well of our wishes
In which we are mirrored, but darkly as though
A shadowed glass held within its frozen calm an image
Of abundance, a bloom of humanness, a hymn in which
The shapes and sounds of paradise are buried.
XLIV
I recall that I stood before the breaking waves,
Afraid not of the water so much as the noise,
That I covered my ears and ran to my mother
And waited to be taken away to the house in town
Where it was quiet, with no sound of the sea anywhere near.
Yet the sea itself, the sight of it, the way it spread
As far as we could see, was thrilling.
Only its roar was frightening. And now years later
It is the sound as well as its size that I love
And miss in my inland exile among the mountains
That do not change except for the light
That colors them or the snows that make them remote
Or the clouds that lift them, so they appear much higher
Than they are. They are acted upon and have none
Of the mystery of the sea that generates its own changes.
Encounters with each are bound to differ,
Yet if I had to choose I would look at the sea
And lose myself in its sounds which so frightened me once.
But in those days what did I know of the pleasures of loss,
Of the edge of the abyss coming close with its hisses
And storms, a great watery animal breaking itself on the rocks,
Sending up stars of salt, loud clouds of spume.
O you can make fun of the splendors of moonlight,
But what would the human heart be if it wanted
Only the dark, wanted nothing on earth
But the sea’s ink or the rock’s black shade?
On a summer night to launch yourself into the silver
Emptiness of air and look over the pale fields
At rest under the sullen stare of the moon,
And to linger in the depths of your vision and wonder
How in this whiteness what you love is past
Grief, and how in the long valley of your looking
Hope grows, and there, under the distant,
Barely perceptible fire of all the stars,
To feel yourself wake into change, as if your change
Were immense and figured into the heavens’ longing.
And yet all you want is to rise out of the shade
Of yourself into the cooling blaze of a summer night
When the moon shines and the earth itself
Is covered and silent in the stoniness of its sleep.
XVIII
“I would like to step out of my heart’s door and be
Under the great sky.” I would like to step out
And be on the other side, and be part of all
That surrounds me. I would like to be
In that solitude of soundless things, in the random
Company of the wind, to be weightless, nameless.
But not for long, for I would be downcast without
The things I keep inside my heart; and in no time
I would be back. Ah! the old heart
In which I sleep, in which my sleep increases, in which
My grief is ponderous, in which the leaves are falling,
In which the streets are long, in which the night
Is dark, in which the sky is great, the old heart
That murmurs to me of what cannot go on,
Of the dancing, of the inmost dancing.
XXVIII
There is a luminousness, a convergence of enchantments,
And the world is altered for the better as trees,
Rivers, mountains, animals, all find their true place,
But only while Orpheus sings. When the song is over
The world resumes its old flaws, and things are again
Mismatched and misplaced and the cruelty of men
Is tempered only by laws. Orpheus can change the world
For a while, but he cannot save it, which is his despair.
It is a brilliant limitation he enacts and
He knows it, which is why the current of his song
Is always mournful, always sad. It is even worse
For the rest of us. As someone has said, “. . . we barely begin
And paralysis takes over, forcing us out for a breath
Of fresh air.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, he says,
“But though reams of work do get done, not much listens.
I have the feeling my voice is just for me . . .” There is
A current of resignation that charges even our most
Determined productions. Still, we feel better for trying,
And there is always a glass of wine to restore us
To our former majesty, to the well of our wishes
In which we are mirrored, but darkly as though
A shadowed glass held within its frozen calm an image
Of abundance, a bloom of humanness, a hymn in which
The shapes and sounds of paradise are buried.
XLIV
I recall that I stood before the breaking waves,
Afraid not of the water so much as the noise,
That I covered my ears and ran to my mother
And waited to be taken away to the house in town
Where it was quiet, with no sound of the sea anywhere near.
Yet the sea itself, the sight of it, the way it spread
As far as we could see, was thrilling.
Only its roar was frightening. And now years later
It is the sound as well as its size that I love
And miss in my inland exile among the mountains
That do not change except for the light
That colors them or the snows that make them remote
Or the clouds that lift them, so they appear much higher
Than they are. They are acted upon and have none
Of the mystery of the sea that generates its own changes.
Encounters with each are bound to differ,
Yet if I had to choose I would look at the sea
And lose myself in its sounds which so frightened me once.
But in those days what did I know of the pleasures of loss,
Of the edge of the abyss coming close with its hisses
And storms, a great watery animal breaking itself on the rocks,
Sending up stars of salt, loud clouds of spume.
Read
August 12, 2021Was a bit different from what I would normally read. Shorter in length and curiously... The entire collection is several chunks of a single poem broken into many parts.
This was a work of art. Truly. An entire collection-length poem is a massive feat. This poetry was beautiful, just not my typical style or choice. But hey, that's why I'm doing this challenge, right?
Would still recommend highly, just wasn't fully for me.
This was a work of art. Truly. An entire collection-length poem is a massive feat. This poetry was beautiful, just not my typical style or choice. But hey, that's why I'm doing this challenge, right?
Would still recommend highly, just wasn't fully for me.
April 16, 2020
Such a beautiful poet.
December 26, 2021
In this collection of poems, Mark Strand has written XLV poems--mostly about death. This is a really deep, contemplative book of his musing, and theories, and jabs to get the reader thinking outside the everyday life we lead. Perhaps a premonition. I loved his unconventional way of writing.
Read
April 21, 2023Considered his best book
June 24, 2023
3.5
A beautiful collection, develops well, and it’s a great example of what long form can and should be.
A beautiful collection, develops well, and it’s a great example of what long form can and should be.
July 7, 2023
ethereal, some of these explain my life perfectly
January 19, 2011
This collection of poems by former poet laureate Mark Strand is by turns dark and brooding, moving and inspirational. Though each of the 45 poems stands alone, they weave together into a rich narrative of love, loss, friendship, and the choices we make that change our lives forever. Running through all the poems is the imagery of Strand's dark harbor, which serves as a metaphor for the surging and ever-changing flow of life. Strand's masterful lyricism is everywhere apparent, and a testament to his careful crafting of each poem's shape and feel. A short collection but a good one, this is an excellent example of Strand's poetic prowess.
November 4, 2016
The titular harbor reached by the volume's end is not quite as dark as the journey our perplexed pilgrim takes to arrive there. It is also luminous, unsettling, resigned, and yet aching with hope--a place of community, after the end of time. A beautiful, rueful, searing book that was much richer on my second reading than I remembered.
August 1, 2011
A long poem, abstract enough to keep me from attempting to decypher the meaning on each page. I did sense an emotional resonance with some of the lines that touched on the melancholia associated with aging and losing one's youthful lust and luster. I learned of this book of poetry from a tribute to Strand's birthday (04/11/1934) on Garrison Keilor's Writer's Almanac.
January 29, 2008
Good, a little too cute at times, but good.
July 30, 2008
Aptly named--it's very dark. But Strand's writing (concise images and impeccable line breaks)makes it worth the downer.
July 30, 2008
My good fried Steven gave me this book for my birthday. I find Strand's lyrical tone to be simultaneously delightul and uncanny.
July 25, 2020
Half-way through this book, I bought another copy. One to keep in the vault and the other to make love to.
October 28, 2025
I’m sorry you guys hate Mark Strand I don’t even know ok
January 4, 2008
Very Wallace-Stevensesque and fantastic.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews