Actual Air

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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 “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. So, if you’re a pragmatic reader and not a poet, you’re probably going to ask: OK, but what is all this stuff about? Drag City has reprinted Actual Air, the acclaimed book of poetry from Silver Jews and Purple Mountains’ David Berman, who died last August.

These artists are suffering and I'd trade all the comfort of their music for them to have not been suffering.The ones that are neither here nor there are flooded by the stop/start fuckbrilliance of the others.

Others I loved in this collection are Now II, Of Things Found Where They Are Not Supposed To Be, Community College in the Rain, The Charm of 5:30, Cantos for James Michener: Part Ii, and Classic Water. The longer poems don’t tend to hold together (the centerpiece of the collection, “Michener’s Cantos [selections],” seems to focus around the concept of the “Polish joke”, and is probably in most of its sections a bit thin to justify its length). And all the interviews and articles that emerged about the intervening "lost" years since Silver Jews ended. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. However, despite his musical genius, Berman considers himself first and foremost a poet, as he should.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. His poems chart a course through his own highly original American dreamscape in language that is fresh, accessible, and remarkably precise. Other effective elements of "Snow"-- its clear sense of unity and direction-- seem lacking in many of the other poems, often leaving me floundering and annoyed. 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.

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.

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. 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. It's very cute and funny and nicely observed, with images/observations like, "Then we were on the roof of the lake. 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".