Realism vs. Surrealism

The most obvious element of Mark Strand's "Eating Poetry"—as well as much of his other work—is the surrealism that bombards and takes over the poem. As a twentieth-century artistic movement, surrealism is an attempt to express what the subconscious mind is thinking and how it works as opposed to the realities that we experience in the conscious mind. One way to grasp the nuances of what is "surreal" is to think about what dreams are like. Consider the fantastic imagery, the weird occurrences that could not happen in real life, and the ease with which they are accepted in the dream itself. We don't often halt the action in a bizarre nightmare to say, "Wait a minute. This isn't realistic." Instead, we simply follow the lead of whatever strange events take place without any idea of the outcome.

The speaker in "Eating Poetry" is...