The Continuous Life Essay & Criticism

The Continuous Life Critical Overview

By 1990, Strand had established a reputation as one of America's preeminent poets. A review of The Continuous Life in People Weekly, a magazine not known for its poetry reviews, says about Strand's collection: "His melancholy evocations of the landscape are joined here by hilarious mini-narratives, reflections on mortality" and on "the small tremors of love that resonate beyond death." Writing for Raritan, Charles Berger praises the volume, noting, "The title poem of the volume gives the most vivid picture of the sublime familiarized into 'a worship of household chores.'" Berger describes Strand's lifelong project of charting the infinitesimal and nuanced shifts of the self, noting that the poem marks an attempt of a later self to make sense of an earlier one. Berger writes: "Hanging over the poem is the question of whether the continuous life is also the completed life, or merely the life built up...
(read more)