Mark Strand was a poet, essayist and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990 and received the Wallace Stevens Award in 2004. Strand was a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University from 2005 to 2014. Strand received his B.A. from Antioch College and his B.F.A. in Painting from Yale University. He attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and received his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. Strand on November 29, 2014.