Although he admits that discussions of craft are at best "precarious," Mark Strand's (April 11, 1934 – November 29, 2014) The Weather of Words is precisely that, and what a resounding work about poetry it is.

The way poetry has of setting our internal house in order, of formalizing emotion challenging to articulate, is one of the reasons we still depend on it in moments of crisis and during those times when it is essential that we know, in so many words, what we are going through. I am thinking of funerals in particular, but the same is true of marriages and birthdays.

Strand was one of the most influential American poets of the 20th century. He was named the poet laureate in 1990 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for his collection Blizzard of One. His writing is warm, clear, and yet transcendent, even abstract.

Sky 10, by Finish artist/photographer Santeri Tuori. Courtesy of Purdy-Hicks Gallery.

This endearing collection of prose and essays starts with "A Poet's Alphabet," a collection of meaningful words reimagined and repurposed.

A is for absence. It is sometimes—but not always—nice to think that other people may be talking about you when you are not present, that you are the subject of a conversation you have not steered in your direction and whose evolution depends on your absence.
From "A Poet's Alphabet"

Adding weight and materiality to abstract notions of time and place is a signature pattern of Strand's writing, a formation etched in reverse by Italian novelist Italo Calvino, who imbued objects with vitality and meaning beyond their materiality.

F is for fashion, literary fashion, which marks the writing of a period or an age and which is virtually inescapable, as inescapable as its sister Death.
From "A Poet's Alphabet"

The Weather of Words is Strand, and his poetry clasped together and unfolded before us. It is a peek behind the curtain into his motivations, inspirations, and single point of beginning.

I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes. These limits exist in turn within the limits of an individual poet's conception of what is or is not a poem.
From "Notes on the Craft of Poetry"

Artists digging into their crafts, unraveling the strands and knots that bind their work, are exceptional gifts to be cherished and overloved.   For more of these shiny explorations of art and craft and for insider looks into some of the minds that shape our thinking, look into George Orwell's love of words, or sculptor Barbara Hepworth's retrospective on a lifetime carving modern figures and director Sidney Lumet's gloriously clear and illustrative Making Movies. Or the collection of brilliant, mind-expanding interviews with Argentine novelist Jorge Luis Borges, including an interview a few days before he died. From them, we—even Strand—take inspiration.

R is for Rilke, whose poems I read for inspiration of a peculiar sort since what I get mainly when I read him is a sense of uplift, some lavish and ornate attempt to locate being, certain moments of ecstatic insight close to the truth, or what I believe to be true. I feel the unutterable has found a place in what has been uttered.
From "A Poet's Alphabet"

The uplift of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry was universal, mainly due to his constant assurances and clear understanding of the isolation of creative beginnings, which Strand touches on frequently. "But then you'll never be able to earn a living," Strand's mother responds when he announces a devotion to poetry. Strand reminds her of the soul-feeding pleasures of poetry. Even the simple ones. One imagines he has Rilke in his back pocket.

Poet Mark Strand, 2004. Photo by Jack Mitchell/Getty Images.

E is for endings, endings to poems, last words designed to release us back into our world with the momentary illusion that no harm has been done. They are various and inscribe themselves in the ghostly aftermath of any work of art.
From "A Poet's Alphabet"

John Steinbeck once lamented that no one invented words anymore. Indeed, a burdensome aspect of being is that we lack words—and thus communication—for the most unique but universal feelings, like longing for the impossible and feeling alienated when we try to step back into memory or resentment at spring for failing to be summer.

"Sky 11", Santeri Tuori. Courtesy of Purdy-Hicks Gallery.

Poet David Whyte polishes a few tarnished words in his collection Consolations. Whyte's "joy" is "a meeting place of deep intentionality and self-forgetting." Strand's definition in The Weather of Words is different but equally autobiographical: "J is for the joy of writing. As if there were such a thing."   My own definition of joy is gathered here. 

Perhaps this is why there are so many languages and resplendent words.