Actual Air

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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. De enige dichtbundel van de geweldige David Berman, frontman van The Silver Jews en Purple Mountains (als je het nu hoort donderen ergens in de buurt van Keulen, luister naar zijn muziek, echt wereldtop).

These poems fascinate me; they superficially resemble a whole host of Dylanesque "throw together a bunch of unrelated images and see what sticks" poetry that does nothing at all for me, but somehow there's something different here. 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. Instead of a long and ultimately not satisfactory review, I'll simply quote just a few of my favorite lines from this collection (if the pages with dog ears give me any idea of how many quotes I wanted to remember, it looks like I enjoyed one from at least each page). I don't know much in this life, but I know that my life, and the lives of so many people I know, were made happier, and deeper, and stranger, and more beautiful, because David Berman lived and wrote.My favorite poems: "Cassette County," "New York, New York," "Community College in the Rain," and the first four in the book. 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. 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. The Virginia-born poet and the lead singer of the Silver Jews expresses his observations of pop-culture, Southern history, souvenirs, community colleges, back pain, hallways, and the weirdness of daily life. 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.

But he doesn’t stay there, but rather goes into one of the more effective associative set of lines in the work: “and the North American doubling cascade/that (keep going) “this diamond lake is a photo lab”/and if predicates really do propel the plot/then you might see Jerusalem in a soap bubble/or the appliance failure on Olive Street/across these great instances,/because “the complex Italian versus the basic Italians/because what does a mirror look like (when it’s not working)…” Several phrases arrest one as being evocative, yet potentially without personal meaning in and of themselves. Robert Bingham, founder and then-editor of the New York literary magazine Open City had already published a few of Berman's poems. But “jive” is a thoroughly modern term that by the time he’s set us up, we’re completely stricken by, only to ultimately be placed in the shoes of the guest who yawns and studies a glass. 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. Shortly after his death, the label Jagjaguwar shared a narrative poem he wrote in 2016 for the label’s 20th anniversary.His poems chart a course through his own highly original American dreamscape in language that is fresh, accessible, and remarkably precise. This debut collection has received extraordinary acclaim from readers and reviewers alike and is quickly becoming a cult classic.

Frontman for the poetical alternative rock band the Silver Jews, Berman has written a book of poems that, like all poetry by rock lyricists, puts the fans' fantasies of rock's ""high art"" quotient to the test. 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. 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.My copy has become tatty from carrying it around in my laptop bag, I've had it for a few weeks and It's stayed in the side pocket while 5-6 novels have been and gone. While such poems can seem as performance-oriented as a Spalding Gray monologue, Berman anticipates the criticism in ""Cassette County"" which ends with the compound koan ""anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship. David Berman's poems obviously share a lot of resemblance to his lyrics—and a few of them even feel like they were written as songs—but his poems speak to me in a way that even my favorite Silver Jews songs do not. 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.

His band, the Silver Jews, has released four albums, The Natural Bridge, Starlite Walker, American Water, and Bright Flight, on Drag City Records ( www. As Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate said, "These poems are beautiful, strange, intelligent, and funny.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. Some of what works about "Snow" --Berman's playfulness and seeming endless supply of fresh, spot-on images/metaphors, --thankfully show up throughout the collection, keeping the reader amused, awakened, and impressed. I think of the sky above the Italian restaurant I ate at in that neighborhood, shading into hues of blue and red, contoured with the paint strokes of clouds, the wine that was poured for us, the laughter between friends and the unconscious wonder at new experiences that might always be around the corner, when you are a visitor and traveler in a place that is not your home. I saw Silver Jews play back in 2005, a lifetime ago, and I feel fortunate to have seen Berman perform his music at least once, music which has been some of my very favorite since I was a teenager, music and lyrics that really meant the world to me, and created a very specific world for me and many people I know. Sometimes Berman so singularly wrangles English into uncanny, dream-logic revelation it gives me goddamn chills.