purely meaningful, unpretentious writing. so good ( )

#880 in our old book database. Not rated.

this probably got an extra star because it was carver's last book, and you can feel his urgency, his intensity, his candle burning bright before the dawn. that said, after reading the introduction, which i read last, i see what they were trying to do with all the quotes from chekhov and others, but while reading it just felt like annoying filler.

also, the poems in here are uneven in terms of quality, but it is worth it for the ones at the top of the scale. ( )

I should read this book at least once every year; some years, more than once. It's slim enough to do so, and Carver's ear for conversational American English means even the longer poems scan quite fast. I went through about half the book on two 15-minute train rides.

But that's just it: it reads fast, and it's short, but there's a lot packed in there. It would ruin the experience for me to analyse it too closely, delve into the layers. But simply to read it once means I'll miss a lot. Some of the layers are thematic (linking historical readings of Alexander the Great or the siege at Thermopylae to everyday personal interactions), some are aesthetic (putting a poem about self-analysis and psychodynamics in a section devoted to fishing, or the mutual commentary of poems suggested by placing them near one another in the book). Multiple readings would help surface these layers without ruining the great conversational style, the easy flow.

And what's with the recurrent excerpts from Chekhov and Milosz? (I suspect Tess Gallagher gets to that in the introduction, but I'll read that after finishing the book.) They're brilliant, and are one display of the wide and historically deep reach of Carver's thinking.

I was first introduced to Carver when watching Altman's The Player, apparently loosely based on Carver's short stories. It took years before I realised that, though I'd become interested in Altman's work since. I've read one selection of Carver's short stories, and they're also deeply affecting. These poems distill a similar take on life, but in even pithier form. ( )

This is the narrative of the end of Carver's career and life. The last sections of poems tell the story of his cancer and his last days. They do so without asking for any pity and without melodrama. The writing is clear and strong.

Perhaps the best review of this piece is in the poem "Ray" by Hayden Carruth which appears in Carruth's collected shorter poems. He nails it and reading Carruth's poem after reading Carver's book led me right back into Carver's book again. It's just tremendous writing to which I return again and again. ( )