Mark Strand has developed a reputation as a poet of absence and darkness, whose verse attempts to articulate the uncertainties of human existence. Born in 1934 in Summerside on Prince Edward Island, Canada, to salesman Robert Joseph and Sonia (Apter) Strand, Strand was raised in cities throughout the United States because of his father's work. Although his childhood ambition was to paint, he found himself writing poems while attending Antioch College, encouraged by author Nolan Miller who was his teacher. Strand received his bachelor of arts degree in 1957 and subsequently took a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting from Yale in 1959 and a master's degree from the University of Iowa in 1962.

In 1964, Strand published his first collection of poems, Sleeping with One Eye Open, which introduced the eerie, disembodied voice that would become his signature style. Although critics sometimes categorized his work with that of neosurrealists...