Actual Air

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As with DFW, it is hard to separate their early death from their work when you--in retrospect--can see it all so clearly, but what we should be more interested in is their lives and their ability to be such a lovely soul in all the darkness. I knew that the best things were hidden, and all of this was said in a private voice, a cousin to the one I used to speak to pets. in times of crisis i carry around books of poetry the way that some people carry around religious texts, reading and re-reading familiar poems like prayers.

I do know that many lines here are etched deeply in my soul, and I've given away at least three copies of this book.

Giving a rating for this--or nearly any--collection of poetry would be easier if you could rate individual poems. There is a touch of James Tate and Charles Simic brewing in the poetry, and it is a shame that I came to this so later.

Or just great lines like ' all water is classic water, or ' The nurses are so beautiful, he thought / Try to remember they are covered in germs. His poems chart a course through his own highly original American dreamscape in language that is fresh, accessible, and remarkably precise.

He died in Park Slope, I was there just a few days before, visiting friends, wandering around, soaking in the beauty of a part of America I have come to really love in my later years. I think there’s a sort of (potentially stereotype-like, though not to me) concept of what the working-class life might seem like in terms of day-to-day details at home with “appliance failures on Olive Street” and “the complex Italians versus the basic Italians”. Webster was known for being sort of the “lunatic” of the playwrights of the era, in that his plays were more likely to depict erratic and semi-insane characters versus, for instance, Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare et al.

However, the first poem in this collection, "Snow", I had read before; it may be a "greatest hit" of sorts for him, as there seem to be a lot of online references and commentary about it. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. This was an absolutely wonderful and enriching read, and I implore everyone to spend some time with Berman's work.Hopeful and nostalgic; recognizable and surprising (and surprising in its recognition), this book is an important puzzle piece in the body of work that is David Bermans life, but also stands on its own. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.