Born on Prince Edward Island, Canada, of American parents, Mark Strand moved regularly as a child whenever his salesman father was relocated. Strand was educated at Antioch College and at several universities—Yale, Florence, and Iowa. He has taught at Utah, Johns Hopkins, and in the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought, and served as poetry editor of The New Republic. In addition to his poetry, he has written a book on the painter Edward Hopper as well as short stories and books for children. A book-length poem in fifty-five sections, Dark Harbor (1993) relates a mental journey through memories and into the afterlife. He often manages a surprisingly controlled use of surreal imagery in poems focused on absence and loss. Recent work has encompassed prose poetry.