"And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life"

In this quote, Mark Strand is going over the work of poet Robert Lowell. He suggests that in Lowell's poems, the reader is not transferred into the poet's individual life, however rather into the external world. Strand believes that Lowell's poems are more concentrated on the objective facts of his life, rather than his inner ideas and emotions. This might be interpreted as a commentary on Lowell's writing style, which might have been more separated and observational instead of introspective. Overall, Strand is highlighting the difference between the personal and the external in Lowell's poetry, and how it impacts the reader's experience.