Nick's review
Actual Air
by David Berman
Nick's review
Actual Air by David Berman
Nick's review
rating:
bookshelves:
poetry
recommended for: blond jewish people
You might find an interview with Berman somewhere on the web, as I did, in which he states that in assembling Actual Air he collected all his interesting ones and frontloaded the thing with all his best work.
This is pretty much true, except for...you know, some exceptions. There's some reaching for a taste of real greatness in those few beginning poems - stately lines that oscillate between two emotions. Wry, sad, funny.
Berman has a beautiful feel for characters down on their luck, characters you and I can identify with, characters who shyly turn their face away. He's lyrical about the beauty of the South and heavy metal and divorcees and the nightmarescapes of back pain.
And then there are his weaker moments, which is why I can't quite give Berman five stars: he's got a fatal penchant for mixing inscrutable political theory into an otherwise fine poem - words like "municipal" and "judiciary" slide like a film over the lucidity. Well whatever, you ...more
This is pretty much true, except for...you know, some exceptions. There's some reaching for a taste of real greatness in those few beginning poems - stately lines that oscillate between two emotions. Wry, sad, funny.
Berman has a beautiful feel for characters down on their luck, characters you and I can identify with, characters who shyly turn their face away. He's lyrical about the beauty of the South and heavy metal and divorcees and the nightmarescapes of back pain.
And then there are his weaker moments, which is why I can't quite give Berman five stars: he's got a fatal penchant for mixing inscrutable political theory into an otherwise fine poem - words like "municipal" and "judiciary" slide like a film over the lucidity. Well whatever, you ...more
