Eating Poetry

Dreamlike and Dry

If you come across another Strand poem, it'll more than likely look something like a dream or manifestation of the speaker's thought process. In other words, you're bound to see a lot of shifts in mood, setting, and tone to accompany the speaker's changing thoughts.

But don't expect Strand to get all weepy and emotional on you. He might talk about emotions a lot, but you won't catch him getting all sentimental on you. Instead, his tone will often sound like it does in "Eating Poetry," either dryly humorous or coolly discursive (meaning he freely moves from one thought to another).

At the same time though, he's apt to be very precise with his word choice, so it's not as if he'll burden you with pages and pages worth of thoughtful explanation. He keeps it simple and he keeps it on point. Check out another poem here that provides a good idea of what we mean by Strand-like.