Eating Poetry Background

"Eating Poetry” originally appeared in the second published collection of Mark Strand’s verse, Reasons for Moving (1968). This was Strand’s breakthrough volume which first gained him notoriety for his unique and idiosyncratic view expressed in his poetry. The surreal strain firmly located within the recognizable landscape of everyday reality that permeates throughout “Eating Poetry” is shared by many of Strand’s most popular works. The poem was crafted during at some indeterminate point in the mid-1960’s, most likely when he as a Fulbright lecturer in Brazil or when he returned to the U.S. following that experience to settle in as a professor at Mt. Holyoke College. The bizarre events and lack of any definable context for the poem’s content leaves it open for plenty of interpretation which has almost certainly contributed to the lasting popularity of one of the strangest tales to ever take place inside a library.