SOURCE: Manguso, Sarah. “Where Is That Boy?” Iowa Review 29, no. 2 (fall 1999): 168-71.

In the following essay, Manguso contends that in Blizzard of One Strand “attempts to explain what happens when he can't show us the subject of his meditation.”

The poems in Mark Strand's latest collection [Blizzard of One,] are missing their subjects. Some have sent false confirmations of their impending arrival, some have come and gone, leaving only their skittish footprints. Depending on a poem's voice, the results of the omission can vary from wry to mournful, but the speaker of nearly every piece, regardless of any ostensible topic, attempts to explain what happens when he can't show us the subject of his meditation. The voice in the opening piece, “Untitled,” asks, “… Where / Is she now? And where is that boy who stood for hours / Outside her house … ?” The poem fails to catch even the beloved's name...