Actual Air by David Berman Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Actual Air
Book Review: Berman is amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
I found Berman through the now-disbanded Silver Jews, sucked in by his lyrics, and his poetry is equally moving.
Buy this book. Either he's playing with the language in fascinating ways or he's telling of things in ways you've never dreamed of. He's rarely off.
Book Review: Died for our sins, or to make us feel guilty?
Summary: 5 Stars
Berman is the best, and only, living american poet. His unassuming posture never lets on to his talent as a shooting gaurd. He will make you wish you had thought of that, and when you try to think of something as witty, you will think of it again and smile. My hats off to you, D.C. you are truly something amazing.Book Review: Easily one of the best books I've read so far in 2006.
Summary: 5 Stars
David Berman, Actual Air (Open City, 1999)
In one of David Berman's amazing poems, we get this passage:
"He wasn't sure how the bathroom mirror worked
but decided it must be powered
by the razor blades and aspirin
he found in the engine compartment.
It was a matter of relearning everything
after he surfaced from the coma."
(--"Cantos for James Michener, Part II", XCVI)
In the fifth and sixth lines there, Berman has summed up, with grace, wit, and perfect accuracy, exactly what poetry is about. And in Actual Air, he realizes this concept over and over again. These are poems that are continually surprising, delightful, sometimes downright funny. They exist for the purpose of seducing the reader (and, perhaps, the poet) into looking at the world in a different way than usual. Berman does what the best do-- takes obvious things and juxtaposes them in such a way that we see them in a new light, but that such new light seems obvious, something you would have seen yourself had you simply known to look for it. The medicine cabinet as engine compartment for the bathroom mirror? That's genius, folks.
The much-vaunted Billy Collins blurbed this book, and says in part that Berman has "...the voice I have been waiting so long to hear, a voice, I wish in some poems, were my own." Indeed. This is the type of poetry that is capable of making the most stouthearted of poets break down and weep out of sheer, bitter jealousy, even as that poet hungrily turns to the next page to see what fresh hell is to be found there. And, even more impressive, every page will offer you something.
"He was my assistant wrestling coach,
sobbing ni the white ruins of his kitchen
for the olde tymes when the towne hospital was fringed
with icicles
and the dogtrack
stands were packed with his friends.
Instead of helping I sat and watched,
desperately afraid that someone would append
a suffix to my name."
(--"They Don't Acknowledge the Letter C")
When I discover a poet I haven't read before who is capital-G great, I get this unmistakable feeling in my gut. There are a lot of books that make me want to write; there are very few that make me wonder why I have ever considered myself a poet. This is one of them. I haven't felt this way about discovering a new poet since I first read Ira Sadoff almost ten years ago.
Watch this kid. If his first book is any indication, he will be the finest writer of his generation. *****
Book Review: Enjoy
Summary: 5 Stars
I've ordered Actual Air a couple times from amazon, and both orders were cancelled due to the book being unavailable. Luckily I found it at Drag City's website, which is the record label that the Silver Jews are on. The available edition is hardcover, limited, and more expensive but well worth it b/c it's a gorgeous cloth binding w/ Berman's facsimile autograph etched into the back board. His poetry is fun, and the images can be so simple & fine that I see why some "poets" have a problem w/ someone who makes it look so easy.Book Review: He is the American Waters?
Summary: 5 Stars
They say Steinbrenner got his start in shipping. Kid, drop the whole Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking hokum and give us some more of this stuff.