"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, a collection of writings on the art and nature of poetry." "The pieces have a broad range and many levels. In one, we sit with the teenage Mark Strand while he reads for the first time a poem that truly amazes him: "You, Andrew Marvell" by Archibald MacLeish, in which night sweeps in an unstoppable but exhilarating circle around the earth toward the speaker standing at noon. The essay goes on to explicate the poem, but it also evokes, through its form and content, the poem's meaning - time's circular passage - with the young Strand first happening upon the poem, the older Strand seeing into it differently, but still amazed." "Among the other subjects Strand explores: the relationship between photographs and poems, the eternal nature of the lyric, the contemporary use of old forms, four American views of Parnassus, and an alphabet of poetic influences."--Jacket.