Reviews of Actual Air
From New Yorker, "Briefly Noted," October 4, 1999
David Berman is a young Virginian poet with a sly, intense regard for the past.
He comes on like a prankster, restocking the imperial orations of Wallace Stevens and
the byzantine monologues of John Ashbery with the pop-cultural bric-a-brac of a
new generation: "I am not a cub scout seduced by Iron Maiden's mirror
worlds." But his words have an easy, eloquent gait; each line needs to be a
line. The landscapes are crisply American, and history, especially Southern
hinstory, casts a shadow. A poem about the death of Lincoln ends, "The
assasin was in mid-air/ when the stagehands wheeled out clouds."
Customer reviews from Amazon
t.wodicka@worldnet.att.net from new york , 18 August, 1999
featuring the best 20th century description of rain
Witty, wonderful stuff. Fans of Richard Brautigan should take note. Also take note: fans of waking up by accident. See 'The Night Nurse Essays' for
pitch perfect description of rain and drowning in the 20th century. Late American 20th century.
A reader from Wainfleet, Ontario, Canada , 8 August, 1999
He's looking at us all kind of funny
Berman's freshness of spirit and ability to observe telescopically the intimate and intimately the telescopic make me smile. Very few authors
(Richard Brautigan included) are able to dream and let it sail like this dude.
A reader from San Francisco , 6 August, 1999
As lyrical as the Silver Jews
Berman's lyrics are some of the greatest aspects of his music with the Silver Jews...it's great to see his prose stand alone, and stand so tall. I had
lost hope for contemporary American poetry, but now I know that I was terribly, terribly wrong.
A reader from San Marcos, Texas , 28 July, 1999
I was blown away
Beautiful, kind, sweet genius. It's been forever and a day since I've read fictions like these. So....useful to my life. Thank you, sir. Thank you so
much.
A reader from Glasgow, Scotland , 28 July, 1999
this book changed my death
I love his sense of meter, phrasing - his charcoal humour, and the section on oncology. i love the creative distinctions illuminated between
oncology and ontology. in this way, berman's text is worshipped and glorified.
It meant a lot to me and everyone here at the cancer ward. After I died, I rose again in fulfilment of the scriptures and found myself coming back
time and again to ACTUAL AIR.
A reader from lexington , 26 July, 1999
chips ahoy! this is one exciting book of poetry
david berman's interrogation of the nostalgic is well - it's great because it makes me think of the old arrested frontier - i'm a cowboy. youre a
cowboy. this is actual, not virtual.
this has to do with his capacity to hypostatize the corporeal in a reluctance to get hung up over cookie factories or sliding scale payment plans.
the result? it makes you believe in me and me in you. that intersubjectivity that lies at the base of every american community is HERE, actual air - i
salute people constantly.
A reader from Chicago , 2 July, 1999
changed me
actual air makes me feel proud to be an American. If this book came from america , and I came from America, things feel better now. I don't know
how proud the author is of America, but that's beside the point.
I am in the process of telling everyone I know to buy this book , because it is very good. Very good is not enough to say about how good it is, but
I feel uncomfortable expressing more fanatical praise, although I probably should - just to get the point across about how very very good the book
is. Imagine how good it might be. It is better even, than that.
A reader , 10 May, 1999
read this book...
my whole life i walked down dusty roads, my own shadow taunted me... i left home for experience, settled in a land of curious inhabitants... met
Dave Berman, a psychedlic mentor, drank his exilir, he showed me his dancing coins... we went to battle, our blood mixed with that of our enemy...
years later i returned to my community with new gifts and powers...
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