NEW YORK – Mark Strand, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. poet laureate widely praised for his concentrated, elegiac verse, has died. He was 80.

Strand, whose works were translated into more than 30 languages, died Saturday morning at his daughter’s New York home from liposarcoma that had spread throughout his body, just weeks after entering hospice care, said his daughter, Jessica Strand.

“He was a funny, elegant, generous and brilliant man,” she said of her father. “A man who lived to work and to be with his friends and the people he loved.”

A distinctive presence even at the end of his life, with his lean build, white hair and round glasses, Strand received numerous honors, including the Pulitzer in 1999 for “Blizzard of One,” a gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a National Book Award nomination this fall for “Collected Poems.” He was appointed poet laureate for 1990-91.

Strand also wrote children’s books and art criticism, helped edit several poetry anthologies and translated the Italian poet Rafael Alberti.