Sadly, two great American poets have died in recent days: Galway Kinnell and Mark Strand. I know Kinnell best for his astounding poem "The Bear," a sort of narrative-inner monologue during which an Inuit hunter pursues a polar bear he has wounded by baiting seal blubber with a sharpened bone. Read it some time; it's well worth reading.
The one Mark Strand poem I recall better than any others is "Eating Poetry," which expresses the kind of irrational, exultant joy in reading and language that all writers have experienced at one time or another. Here is this great (and admittedly, somewhat bizarre) short poem in its entirety:
"Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
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