The Late Hour

by Mark Strand

Book by Strand, Mark

Genres: Poetry

62 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Mark 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.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

This evening in my room there was a pool of pink light
that floated on the wooden floor and I thought of the night
you sailed away. I closed my eyes and tried to think
of ways we might be reconciled;I could not think of one.
*
It is all in the mind, you say, and has
nothing to do with happiness. The coming of cold,
the coming of heat, the mind has all the time in the world.

You take my arm and say something will happen,
something unusual for which we were always prepared,
like the sun arriving after a day in Asia,
like the moon departing after a night with us.

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Another Place” / “Lines for Winter” / “An Old Man Awake in His Own Death”

[C.W. Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a mastery of simple, concise emotion

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading Mark Strand. He was so great.

[Jace Einfeldt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tremendous book of poetry. There were several poems that literally took my breath away. I’d only read “Where Are the Waters of Childhood” before in J.D. McClatchy’s Vintage Book of Contemporary Poetry. I love that poem, and I think I love it even more as a small piece of an even more beautiful and nostalgic whole. “My Son”, “For Jessica, My Daughter”, “An Old Man Awake in His Own Death”, and “Poems of Air” were standouts for me. Closing with “Night Pieces” was such a baller move. The ending section of “Night Pieces” was an amazing send off:

All that we lost at night is back.
Thank you, faithful things!
Thank you, world!
To know that the city is still there,
that the woods are still there,
and the houses, and the humming of traffic,
and the slow cows grazing in the field;
that the earth continues to turn
and time hasn't stopped,
that we come back whole
to suck the sweet marrow of day,
thank you, bright morning,
thank you, thank you!

I mean, come on, man. 😌

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to look up how old he was when this was published, because he writes like an old man at the end of his life, but he was in his early 40s when he wrote these.

Snowfall
Watching snow cover the ground, cover itself,
cover everything that is not you, you see
it is the downward drift of light
upon the sound of air sweeping away the air,
it is the fall of moments into moments, the burial
of sleep, the down of winter, the negative of night.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite books.