Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Mark Strand’s "The Way It Is" is a brooding and surreal meditation on despair, societal disintegration, and the futility of human aspirations in the face of chaos and mortality. Anchored by an epigraph from Wallace Stevens—"The world is ugly, / And the people are sad"—the poem plunges into a fragmented and dreamlike narrative where personal anguish is interwoven with a broader cultural and existential malaise. Strand’s vivid, often grotesque imagery and his disjointed, associative structure evoke a world teetering on the edge of collapse, mirroring the speaker’s inner turmoil and a collective sense of despair.

The poem begins with the speaker lying in bed, sleepless and restless, an act that immediately establishes a sense of alienation and vulnerability. The "cold unruffled deep / of [the] sheets" evokes both a physical discomfort and an emotional void, a recurring motif in Strand’s work. The inability to find solace in sleep parallels the speaker’s inability to reconcile with the disordered world outside. This initial stillness is quickly disrupted by the surreal figure of the neighbor, who "marches in his room, / wearing the sleek / mask of a hawk." The mask transforms the neighbor into a predatory, almost mythic figure, his features distorted into a menacing blend of human and animal. The "violet plume" and the moonlight that "spills over him like milk" enhance the dreamlike and otherworldly atmosphere, while the description of his "white / glass bowls of eyes" suggests an unsettling emptiness or inhumanity.

The neighbor’s actions, however bizarre, resonate with the poem’s underlying exploration of societal decay. His transformation continues as he moves from his domestic space to the public realm, "sitting in the park, waving a small American Flag." This ironic gesture—of patriotism reduced to a futile, almost absurd display—underscores the disconnection between national symbols and individual despair. The neighbor’s lurking presence "at the frayed edges of town," where he "pull[s] a gun on someone like me," signals the omnipresence of violence and the breakdown of community. The speaker’s reaction—crouching "under the kitchen table, telling myself / I am a dog"—highlights his fear and dehumanization, a retreat into an animalistic state for survival.

The neighbor’s wife, introduced with a stark sensuality, complicates the domestic and social dynamic. Her actions—walking into the living room, undressing, and engaging in an intimate, almost feral dance with her husband—are both voyeuristic and grotesque. The details of their interaction, from "her hands inside his pants" to the description of his breath as reeking "with the swill and weather of hell," turn a moment of intimacy into a scene of unsettling excess. Their physicality, juxtaposed against the speaker’s isolation and the broader societal chaos, underscores the dissonance between private desires and the crumbling world outside.

The scene expands outward to the streets, where chaos reigns. Strand paints a dystopian image of people "lying down / with their knees in the air," their faces worn and their ears filled with ashes. The arrival of "horsemen...telling them why / they should die" invokes apocalyptic imagery, suggesting both biblical judgment and modern societal collapse. This external chaos mirrors the speaker’s own internal disintegration, creating a layered narrative where personal and collective anxieties are inseparable.

The speaker’s relationship with the neighbor’s wife takes on a spectral quality as she calls to him through the wall, claiming her husband is dead. This moment blurs the boundaries between reality and hallucination, as the speaker’s distrust—"hoping she has not lied"—reveals his deep skepticism of both others and his own perceptions. The oppressive grayness of the room, "the moon’s color through the windows of a laundromat," suggests a pervasive and mundane despair, stripping even celestial light of its transcendence.

The speaker’s descent into surreal visions reaches its peak as he imagines himself "in the park / on horseback, surrounded by dark, / leading the armies of peace." This fantasy of power and agency is immediately undermined by the rigidity of the horse’s "iron legs," symbolizing the futility of his imagined authority. The rhetorical question, "Where will the turmoil end?" reflects the poem’s central tension—an unanswerable yearning for resolution amidst chaos.

The final stanzas return to broader societal imagery, depicting a world immobilized by apathy and decay. The stalling taxis, the huddled office workers "telling the same story over and over," and the haunting line "Everyone who has sold himself wants to buy himself back" collectively capture a sense of paralysis and regret. The night, described as eating "into their limbs / like a blight," suggests an inexorable decay, both physical and moral. The conclusion—"The future is not what it used to be. / The graves are ready. The dead / shall inherit the dead"—is a bleak and sardonic twist on biblical language, emphasizing the inevitability of death and the futility of human endeavors.

Structurally, the poem’s fragmented, associative style mirrors its thematic preoccupation with disintegration and chaos. The lack of clear transitions between scenes creates a sense of drifting through a series of disconnected, dreamlike vignettes. Strand’s use of surreal and grotesque imagery destabilizes the reader, forcing them to confront the poem’s uneasy blend of the personal and the universal, the real and the imagined.

“The Way It Is” captures the unsettling collision of personal despair and societal collapse, weaving a tapestry of surreal and apocalyptic imagery that reflects both the speaker’s inner fragmentation and the world’s broader unraveling. Strand’s masterful use of language and structure creates a haunting meditation on the futility of human efforts to impose order on a chaotic and indifferent existence. The poem’s conclusion offers no solace, only a stark reminder of mortality and the inevitable disintegration of self and society.

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