Politics & Power Quote by Mark Strand

Strand is drawing a line in the sand against the cult of the poet as content. He’s not denying that personality leaks into art; he’s rejecting the idea that it should be the main attraction. The phrase “resources of poetry” quietly insists that the medium has its own intelligence: sound, line breaks, syntax, rhythm, metaphor, compression, silence. Those aren’t decorative choices. They’re the tools by which language thinks beyond what the poet already knows about themselves.

The dig at “defects or triumphs” targets two easy modes of American literary celebrity: the confessional wound and the inspirational victory lap. Both trade on biography as a shortcut to significance: feel for me, admire me, watch me suffer, watch me overcome. Strand’s subtext is almost moral: when poems become personality delivery systems, the poet’s life starts to function like marketing copy, and craft becomes secondary. That’s “exploits,” a verb with a faintly prosecutorial edge.

Context matters. Strand came of age after mid-century confessional poetry had reset readers’ expectations about authenticity, and as workshop culture and media profiles increasingly rewarded a recognizable “voice” tied to a persona. His statement defends a colder, more impersonal kind of heat: the poem as an object made with pressure and patience, not as a diary entry with good lighting.

There’s also an American anxiety here about sincerity. Strand suggests that the deepest sincerity might be formal: not “look at me,” but “look at what language can do when it’s pushed to its limits.”