mcmillan's review
3.0
I listened to an interview of Mark Strand on a CBC podcast the last time I drove to Kamloops. He seemed like a fascinating man, and the poems they read of his were terrific. They were surreal and hilarious. I ordered this book as soon as I got home, and I’m fairly happy with it. It was way too expensive for its size, and I found many of the poems to be forgettable, but there are a few gems hidden in there.
xterminal's review
3.0
Mark Strand, Man and Camel (Knopf, 2006)
I let my review of this go too long, and it ended up going back to the library without my pulling quotes to illustrate my points, so this is going to be a very short review.
I've read a few of Strand's books before, and never really quite figured out what it is about his work that everyone goes on about. I once submitted some stuff to a magazine, and when I got a reply, they'd taken everything except one poem which they labeled as being “too personal” for their readership. (I still have no idea why, since it was a cut-up/fold-in thing that had as little of the personal about it as I could manage!) I often get that feeling while reading Strand, whether it's the forty-year-old poems in Darker or the more recent stuff in Man and Camel, and this is one of those places where I wish I still had the book in front of me to pull quotes; there's a poem about seeing a woman, and knowing her, or thinking you know her, and it seems to end about three lines before everything comes together. On the other hand, this book did bring me the closest I think I've come to figuring it out, in the long poem towards the back, where I felt at least three or four times that whatever bones Strand had fleshed out to make this poem (many of which were religious, and not a few secular) were close enough to the surface to make out their shapes, and not coincidentally that was my favorite poem here.
If you're already a fan, you're pretty much guaranteed to like what you find. If you're not yet, this is the best of Strand's books that I've read so far. ***
I let my review of this go too long, and it ended up going back to the library without my pulling quotes to illustrate my points, so this is going to be a very short review.
I've read a few of Strand's books before, and never really quite figured out what it is about his work that everyone goes on about. I once submitted some stuff to a magazine, and when I got a reply, they'd taken everything except one poem which they labeled as being “too personal” for their readership. (I still have no idea why, since it was a cut-up/fold-in thing that had as little of the personal about it as I could manage!) I often get that feeling while reading Strand, whether it's the forty-year-old poems in Darker or the more recent stuff in Man and Camel, and this is one of those places where I wish I still had the book in front of me to pull quotes; there's a poem about seeing a woman, and knowing her, or thinking you know her, and it seems to end about three lines before everything comes together. On the other hand, this book did bring me the closest I think I've come to figuring it out, in the long poem towards the back, where I felt at least three or four times that whatever bones Strand had fleshed out to make this poem (many of which were religious, and not a few secular) were close enough to the surface to make out their shapes, and not coincidentally that was my favorite poem here.
If you're already a fan, you're pretty much guaranteed to like what you find. If you're not yet, this is the best of Strand's books that I've read so far. ***
julieputty's review
3.0
Not a waste of time, but also not a book I would return to. Strand is capable of much much better.
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