Word: strand
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...FIRST came upon a style similar to Orr's while sitting in the waiting-room of a doctor's office. Appearing in the New Yorker was a single poem by Mark Strand called "The Room." It describes a place much like that waiting-room: antiseptic, empty, bereft of any outward emotion, full of silent anticipation. A sense of detachment in the short, simple lines emphasizes an underlying presence of death and sorrow. And Strand's dreamlike collection of everyday objects paradoxically works to produce a coherent poem. Orr's poetry used the same simplicity, the same etherial contrast of commonplace...
Conveniently, Orr has also written a poem entitled "The Room." Since both poems are statements about poetry, the room being the poem, a comparison between the two can show how Orr departs from reality, and what makes that departure so attractive. As you "enter" Strand's "room," a strange one-sided dialogue ensues: he puts questions to you are thinking. While he recognizes his own place in the poem, he remains "at the back/of the room." The words themselves have to do the job of the poetry, to 'fit' the reader...
...matron, a grandmother probably, every day at 1:45 removes herself to a corner to change. She takes off her white attendant's uniform, steps into a long purple acetate dress and fastens a single strand of pearls. At 1:48 she begins to sweep again. She times the sweep to a rhythmic chant that does not vary from day to day. "Two o'clock, pool closes, hurry up please...
...scarcely looks like a pillar of academe. Crammed into six dowdy buildings on a narrow lane hard by the Strand, it has no spacious lawns or gracious halls. But the intellectual life of the London School of Economics has never been cramped...
...eyes, she assumes a trancelike expression that rarely bespeaks the slightest emotion. Rivals have described her intensity as "almost eerie," her slit-eyed squint as "snake-like." Julie Heldman claims that Evert's poise is so great that she does not seem to sweat, much less disturb a strand of her honey brown hair. "I have never seen Chris look disheveled," says Julie, "or even pleasantly rumpled...