Pulitzer-winning poet laureate Mark Strand dies at 80 years old

Mark Strand, who was named U.S. poet laureate in 1990, died on Saturday at age 80 of liposarcoma, his daughter confirmed to The New York Times. Strand won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1999 for his collection Blizzard of One.

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"I was never much good with language as a child," Strand told The Los Angeles Times Magazine in 1991. "Believe me, the idea that I would someday become a poet would have come as a complete shock to everyone in my family."