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spenkevich's review
4.0
*Brief update learning of the passing of David Berman and revisiting this collection all evening. 8/7/19*
Hearing that David Berman is gone really stung today, not just because the way his poetry, music and lyrics have had a large impact on me throughout my life--particularly in hard times, but mostly because he was such a bright light while enduring his own personal struggles that eventually became too much for him. His recent album with Purple Mountains has been in massive rotation for me this summer, particularly the opening track "That's Just the Way I Feel" which has gotten me through many long days, but listening to it on the way home tonight I can't help but notice the cries for help in the lyrics. 2019 has been a dark year, and hearing lines like "I spent a decade playing chicken with oblivion" can be a comfort when you finally feel understood. Something that always strikes me are artists who turn their personal struggles into something beautiful and while it may be there hand reaching out for help, it is also a hand that pulls those in need of some support and help up and says "i understand, I'm here, let's get through this together". It's also a good reminder to check in on those who always seem to understand and be a support, we can't forget they need support as well. Berman's songs were always a dear companion during the hardest parts of my life and I can't thank him enough for that, but we also can't glorify the notion of a tortured artist. These artists are suffering and I'd trade all the comfort of their music for them to have not been suffering. What Berman always pulled off exceptionally well is to place the dark lyrics into an upbeat song (listen to the first few tracks of Purple Mountains for a perfect example) and so often we find those who manage to appear upbeat are also hurting inside. In an elegy for David Foster Wallace, Johnathan Franzen talked about how Wallace would dive into the pits of sadness and return with a beautiful story that would serve to comfort those who heard it. In closing he wrote that 'He’d gone down into the well of infinite sadness, beyond the reach of story, and he didn’t make it out it. But he had a beautiful, yearning innocence, and he was trying.' I thought about this while reading and listen to Berman tonight. 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. We must stop the glorification of illness and tortured artists. I'm endlessly grateful that Berman's art was a hand to hold in dark times, a hand that will hold those in the future even now that he is gone, but I'm also very saddened that in order for that hand to be reaching out he was suffering himself. Thank you for the beauty, words and songs. Thanks for shining out in the wild kindness. Farewell.
**Original review--8/17/15**
Each page was a new chance to understand the last.
A good friend of mine always tells me ‘David Berman is on our side.’ And how could he not be? If he wasn’t, I’d jump ship to whatever side he was. Actual Air by David Berman is a refreshing glass of reality, a chance to see the world like ‘ seeing rain / in it’s original uncut form.’ These poems are the sort of people you want to drink down the dregs of the day with around a campfire while laughing and singing your favorite songs; the kind of friend who always has your best interest at heart and surprises you with their endless wholesome friendship; the person you call first when you need to reach out into the void and hear a familiar voice, and don’t have to call when something great happens because they are already there with you. These are poems you hug tight in good times and in bad. Berman manages to drill to the core of life and fill you with all it’s glory, dredging up an understanding of the beauty in life that you didn’t realize you possessed, all written so seemingly effortlessly and engagingly accessible without sacrificing content, depth or style.
If you have ever quit a job over an imaginary paycut,
mistakenly taken your house’s thermostat for a dial
with which to focus the window,
written a play about the special relationship that blooms
when a withdrawn honor student is assigned to tutor
the school’s basketball star,
fallen in love with the woman who plays the part
of your character’s wife and bears you a child
who can communicate with rust,
been deafened by a panoply of voices in the classifieds,
tied up every private detective in town with false leads,
taken photos of people saying “shut up,”
or know a place where you can get married at midnight,
then you know what I’m talking about.
I came to this collection shamefully late, especially considering the more than a decade under the influence of his music in Silver Jews, of which David Berman is the frontman along with members of the band Pavement (including the always amazing Stephen Malkmus and on a few Bonnie 'Prince' Billy tracks). Don’t know them? Do yourself a massive favor and introduce yourself to them, they always give a kind, firm handshake and smile to your soul. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sang and strummed to an audience of stars and moon the song Random Rules, or took years off my eardrums to The Wild Kindness or Punks in the Beerlight. Berman’s lyrics are impeccable. ‘I asked a painter why the roads are colored black. He said ‘Steve, it’s because people leave and no highway can bring them back.’ However, despite his musical genius, Berman considers himself first and foremost a poet, as he should. Yet the two are eternally wedded together in the way they both scratch those terrible existential itches of life, and the way both maintain a youthful fondness for existence that hasn’t lessened with age. It is a chance to be sentimental without twee sentimentality, ‘souvenirs only remind you of buying them.’ It is what you need.
‘The night we got so high we convinced ourselves
that the road was a hologram projected by the headlight beams.’
This collection is bursting with unforgettable, beautiful little moments. For example, Berman has a poem titled ‘The Moon’ which consists of these fascinating and powerful images of people finding their way through life and its absurdities then ends with the line ‘and the moon, I forgot to mention the moon.’ Or talking about signing his name on the lower corner of a window so the world becomes his art through his perception of it. 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.’ It is playful yet heartfelt at all times and embodies a modern generation by etching a detailed portrait out of prose alone. 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. In the ideal world, or the world as written by a first-time novelist romanticizing their coming-of-age as if it meant anything to anyone other than them, I would have bought this at 16 and at 21 bought James Tate because of the blurb from him on the back, then cried at 29 when Tate passed. At least one of these things happened. Don’t let time pass you by without Berman in your life, in any form. Berman is a joy to read, and is certainly on our side.
4.5/5
New York, New York
A second New York is being built
a little west of the old one.
Why another, no one asks,
just built it, and they do.
The city is still closed off
to all but the work crews
who claim it’s a perfect mirror image.
Truthfully, each man works on the replica
of the apartment building lives in,
adding new touches,
like cologne dispensers, rock gardens,
and doorknobs marked for the grand hotels.
Improvements here and there, done secretly
and off the books. None of the supervisors
notice or mind. Everyone’s in a wonderful mood,
joking, taking walks through the still streets
that the single reporter allowed inside has describes as
“unleavened with reminders of the old city’s complicated past,
but giving off some blue perfume from the early years on earth.”
The men grow to love the peaceful town.
It becomes more difficult to return home at night,
which sets the wives to worrying.
The yellow soups are cold, the sunsets quick.
The men take long breaks on the fire escapes,
waving across the quiet spaces to other workers
meditating on the perches.
Until one day…
The sky filled with charred clouds.
Toolbelts rattle in the rising wind.
Something is wrong.
A foreman stands in the avenue
pointing binoculars at a massive gray mark
moving towards us in the eastern sky.
Several voices, What, What is it?
Pigeons, he yells through the wind.
Snow
Walking through a field with my little brother Seth
I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.
He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.
Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.
Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.
I didn't know where I was going with this.
They were on his property, I said.
When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.
Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.
We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.
But why were they on his property, he asked.
Hearing that David Berman is gone really stung today, not just because the way his poetry, music and lyrics have had a large impact on me throughout my life--particularly in hard times, but mostly because he was such a bright light while enduring his own personal struggles that eventually became too much for him. His recent album with Purple Mountains has been in massive rotation for me this summer, particularly the opening track "That's Just the Way I Feel" which has gotten me through many long days, but listening to it on the way home tonight I can't help but notice the cries for help in the lyrics. 2019 has been a dark year, and hearing lines like "I spent a decade playing chicken with oblivion" can be a comfort when you finally feel understood. Something that always strikes me are artists who turn their personal struggles into something beautiful and while it may be there hand reaching out for help, it is also a hand that pulls those in need of some support and help up and says "i understand, I'm here, let's get through this together". It's also a good reminder to check in on those who always seem to understand and be a support, we can't forget they need support as well. Berman's songs were always a dear companion during the hardest parts of my life and I can't thank him enough for that, but we also can't glorify the notion of a tortured artist. These artists are suffering and I'd trade all the comfort of their music for them to have not been suffering. What Berman always pulled off exceptionally well is to place the dark lyrics into an upbeat song (listen to the first few tracks of Purple Mountains for a perfect example) and so often we find those who manage to appear upbeat are also hurting inside. In an elegy for David Foster Wallace, Johnathan Franzen talked about how Wallace would dive into the pits of sadness and return with a beautiful story that would serve to comfort those who heard it. In closing he wrote that 'He’d gone down into the well of infinite sadness, beyond the reach of story, and he didn’t make it out it. But he had a beautiful, yearning innocence, and he was trying.' I thought about this while reading and listen to Berman tonight. 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. We must stop the glorification of illness and tortured artists. I'm endlessly grateful that Berman's art was a hand to hold in dark times, a hand that will hold those in the future even now that he is gone, but I'm also very saddened that in order for that hand to be reaching out he was suffering himself. Thank you for the beauty, words and songs. Thanks for shining out in the wild kindness. Farewell.
**Original review--8/17/15**
Each page was a new chance to understand the last.
A good friend of mine always tells me ‘David Berman is on our side.’ And how could he not be? If he wasn’t, I’d jump ship to whatever side he was. Actual Air by David Berman is a refreshing glass of reality, a chance to see the world like ‘ seeing rain / in it’s original uncut form.’ These poems are the sort of people you want to drink down the dregs of the day with around a campfire while laughing and singing your favorite songs; the kind of friend who always has your best interest at heart and surprises you with their endless wholesome friendship; the person you call first when you need to reach out into the void and hear a familiar voice, and don’t have to call when something great happens because they are already there with you. These are poems you hug tight in good times and in bad. Berman manages to drill to the core of life and fill you with all it’s glory, dredging up an understanding of the beauty in life that you didn’t realize you possessed, all written so seemingly effortlessly and engagingly accessible without sacrificing content, depth or style.
If you have ever quit a job over an imaginary paycut,
mistakenly taken your house’s thermostat for a dial
with which to focus the window,
written a play about the special relationship that blooms
when a withdrawn honor student is assigned to tutor
the school’s basketball star,
fallen in love with the woman who plays the part
of your character’s wife and bears you a child
who can communicate with rust,
been deafened by a panoply of voices in the classifieds,
tied up every private detective in town with false leads,
taken photos of people saying “shut up,”
or know a place where you can get married at midnight,
then you know what I’m talking about.
I came to this collection shamefully late, especially considering the more than a decade under the influence of his music in Silver Jews, of which David Berman is the frontman along with members of the band Pavement (including the always amazing Stephen Malkmus and on a few Bonnie 'Prince' Billy tracks). Don’t know them? Do yourself a massive favor and introduce yourself to them, they always give a kind, firm handshake and smile to your soul. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sang and strummed to an audience of stars and moon the song Random Rules, or took years off my eardrums to The Wild Kindness or Punks in the Beerlight. Berman’s lyrics are impeccable. ‘I asked a painter why the roads are colored black. He said ‘Steve, it’s because people leave and no highway can bring them back.’ However, despite his musical genius, Berman considers himself first and foremost a poet, as he should. Yet the two are eternally wedded together in the way they both scratch those terrible existential itches of life, and the way both maintain a youthful fondness for existence that hasn’t lessened with age. It is a chance to be sentimental without twee sentimentality, ‘souvenirs only remind you of buying them.’ It is what you need.
‘The night we got so high we convinced ourselves
that the road was a hologram projected by the headlight beams.’
This collection is bursting with unforgettable, beautiful little moments. For example, Berman has a poem titled ‘The Moon’ which consists of these fascinating and powerful images of people finding their way through life and its absurdities then ends with the line ‘and the moon, I forgot to mention the moon.’ Or talking about signing his name on the lower corner of a window so the world becomes his art through his perception of it. 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.’ It is playful yet heartfelt at all times and embodies a modern generation by etching a detailed portrait out of prose alone. 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. In the ideal world, or the world as written by a first-time novelist romanticizing their coming-of-age as if it meant anything to anyone other than them, I would have bought this at 16 and at 21 bought James Tate because of the blurb from him on the back, then cried at 29 when Tate passed. At least one of these things happened. Don’t let time pass you by without Berman in your life, in any form. Berman is a joy to read, and is certainly on our side.
4.5/5
New York, New York
A second New York is being built
a little west of the old one.
Why another, no one asks,
just built it, and they do.
The city is still closed off
to all but the work crews
who claim it’s a perfect mirror image.
Truthfully, each man works on the replica
of the apartment building lives in,
adding new touches,
like cologne dispensers, rock gardens,
and doorknobs marked for the grand hotels.
Improvements here and there, done secretly
and off the books. None of the supervisors
notice or mind. Everyone’s in a wonderful mood,
joking, taking walks through the still streets
that the single reporter allowed inside has describes as
“unleavened with reminders of the old city’s complicated past,
but giving off some blue perfume from the early years on earth.”
The men grow to love the peaceful town.
It becomes more difficult to return home at night,
which sets the wives to worrying.
The yellow soups are cold, the sunsets quick.
The men take long breaks on the fire escapes,
waving across the quiet spaces to other workers
meditating on the perches.
Until one day…
The sky filled with charred clouds.
Toolbelts rattle in the rising wind.
Something is wrong.
A foreman stands in the avenue
pointing binoculars at a massive gray mark
moving towards us in the eastern sky.
Several voices, What, What is it?
Pigeons, he yells through the wind.
Snow
Walking through a field with my little brother Seth
I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.
He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.
Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.
Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.
I didn't know where I was going with this.
They were on his property, I said.
When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.
Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.
We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.
But why were they on his property, he asked.
ageorgallis's review
3.0
One of my favorite things about poetry is that it can be about nothing & make little sense to me, but still hit home.