How does Mark Strand use imagery in Eating Poetry?

The imagery in the final stanza is both ironic and contradictory. We learned in line 14 that the speaker had taken on the characteristics of a dog, but in line 16 he tells us "I am a new man." He immediately follows this statement with more canine allusions: "I snarl at her and bark." Bouncing back and forth between images that are incongruous and offering no ultimate explanation for the confusion is a technique that draws readers to this poet's work instead of driving them away. Strand piques curiosity and teases the intellect in such a way that we are prepared for such odd and delightful lines as the one that ends "Eating Poetry": "I romp with joy in the bookish dark."