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Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets
Bite Every Sorrow: Poems
"This is a splendid book, morally serious, poetically authentic, spiritually discerning." -- C. K. Williams, from his judge's citation for the 1997 Walt Whitman Award Barbara Ras, a poet exquisitely heedful of nuance both physical and visceral, cinches deserved renown with this prize-winning debut collection. Bite Every Sorrow invites the reader to embrace beauty, loss, outrage, and the world in all its particular heartbreaks and hilarities, because, as Ras asks, "What's life without the details?"
Her ability to tap the ordinary and draw forth profundity is brilliantly displayed in "You Can't Have It "
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown handsgloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old fingeron your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful lookof the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would biteevery sorrow until it fled
Whether honoring a dead friend or reveling in the lustful music of insects, Ras's poems poke into unlikely nooks and invented crannies, uncovering questions that matter to everyone -- how to laugh, how to hope, how to love.
Her ability to tap the ordinary and draw forth profundity is brilliantly displayed in "You Can't Have It "
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown handsgloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old fingeron your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful lookof the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would biteevery sorrow until it fled
Whether honoring a dead friend or reveling in the lustful music of insects, Ras's poems poke into unlikely nooks and invented crannies, uncovering questions that matter to everyone -- how to laugh, how to hope, how to love.
- GenresPoetry
88 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1998
8 people are currently reading
210 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 1, 2011
I have never actually bought this book, and God, I need to. . . Barbara Ras is the author of one of my fave poems, "You Can't Have it all" (Really sweet, really happy) (My other fave is actually called "You Can Have It" (Very bleak and hopeless) and is by Phillip Levine.)I'm actually not kidding, or trying to be weird or ironic, or get some kind of strange attention. These are actually two of my faves!! So here it is
You Can't Have It All
by Barbara Ras
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
until you realize foam's twin is blood.
You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs,
so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind,
glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness,
never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you
all roads narrow at the border.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave
where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead,
but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands
as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful
for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful
for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels
sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts,
for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream,
the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind
as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.
You Can't Have It All
by Barbara Ras
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
until you realize foam's twin is blood.
You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs,
so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind,
glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness,
never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you
all roads narrow at the border.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave
where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead,
but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands
as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful
for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful
for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels
sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts,
for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream,
the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind
as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.
November 25, 2008
C. K. Williams selected this book as the 1997 Walt Whitman Award winner, and I can see why. It is, in its strongest pieces, reminiscient of Williams' own long-lined work. Some beautiful and gracious descriptions of couplehood and of motherhood. The section about her Polish grandmother and great-grandmother ought to have been left out (where was the editor?) as it was banal, though obviously meaningful to the poet. Descriptions of living in the tropics were striking and heat-imbued, but all in all, there could have been a good deal left out to the betterment of the poems. Lovely first book, but obviously a first book.
March 11, 2009
This book is terrific from start to finish. Inventive, deeply passionate poems that astonished and moved me. I can see why it won the Whitman Prize, and I think Walt himself would have loved these pieces.
June 25, 2009
She just might be my favorite...her and Adrienne Rich
August 8, 2015
Barbara's poetry is startling, beautiful, intense, and accessible. What more could a person want from a poetry collection?
September 16, 2023
Meh...but love the title and he poem it comes from - pasted below. Thanks to Maria Popova for bringing it to my attention. Apologies for the inaccurate layout/lack of line breaks ...
You Can't Have It All
by Barbara Ras
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands. gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back. You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August, you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love, though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys until you realize foam's twin is blood. You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs, so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind, glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness, never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you all roads narrow at the border. You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead, but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts, for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream, the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand. You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed, at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise. You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump, how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards, until you learn about love, about sweet surrender, and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you, you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's, it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.
You Can't Have It All
by Barbara Ras
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands. gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back. You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August, you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love, though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys until you realize foam's twin is blood. You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs, so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind, glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness, never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you all roads narrow at the border. You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead, but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts, for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream, the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand. You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed, at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise. You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump, how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards, until you learn about love, about sweet surrender, and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you, you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's, it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.
August 8, 2021
Bought this for “You Can’t Have it All” (which I won’t excerpt, you’ll just have to read in its entirety) and enjoyed overall.
“gone with the way the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, / gone with afternoons a five year old could walk downtown to the library / alone and back, gone with key skates, three-speed bikes, gone with days / when children owned the streets.”
from “Childhood”
The Sealey Challenge 6/31
“gone with the way the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, / gone with afternoons a five year old could walk downtown to the library / alone and back, gone with key skates, three-speed bikes, gone with days / when children owned the streets.”
from “Childhood”
The Sealey Challenge 6/31
June 28, 2025
Unique to the style of poetry I normally enjoy, but I did enjoy it nonetheless. Somewhat autobiographical and narrative, but with my kind of observational poetry snuck in. It was a weird ride that I'm glad I went on and would recommend.
December 3, 2018
This book has one of my favorite poems of all times: "You Can't Have it all" by Barbara Ras
I also found a few other poems touching and memorable, though many did not speak to me quite as much.
"There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.”
I also found a few other poems touching and memorable, though many did not speak to me quite as much.
"There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.”
September 1, 2011
Favorite poems in the collection included:
"You Can't Have It All"
"The Bus Hot Enough for Everything"
"In the New Country"
"The Sadness of Kids"
"Other Deaths"
"My Train"
"God in Hawaii"
I really like the way she expands out and out with associations and theme, but because she really doesn't do anything with enjambment/line break and speaks mostly in complete, declarative sentences, I sometimes wonder why these are not prose poems.
"You Can't Have It All"
"The Bus Hot Enough for Everything"
"In the New Country"
"The Sadness of Kids"
"Other Deaths"
"My Train"
"God in Hawaii"
I really like the way she expands out and out with associations and theme, but because she really doesn't do anything with enjambment/line break and speaks mostly in complete, declarative sentences, I sometimes wonder why these are not prose poems.
March 10, 2010
The first poem in this collection -- "You Can't Have It All" -- is worth getting the book. It's just spectacular. Each of the other poems has multiple surprises. Imagine beginning a poem with, "The sadness of fruit is like the sadness of scissors, their blue handles..." or "It was the ocean I wanted, waves like pets running out, coming back..." I'll just have to read more Barbara Ras.
June 1, 2012
I sat in the sun, reading these, and one poem touched me so deeply that I began to cry. (Keep in mind that I began reading these the week after my best friend died.) The poem, 'Letters To The Front, 2' from a wife to her husband at war, speaks of death and remembrance, and was, for me, the standout of the book.
November 20, 2012
That's surprising.
I have loved Ras's "You Can't Have It All" for years. And I still do, but I see now why someone dismissed it as overly sentimental. And I'm not as struck by the other poems in this collection as I would have thought I'd be — the imagery isn't dramatic or unusual, the vocabulary doesn't do startling things. I'm a little disappointed.
I have loved Ras's "You Can't Have It All" for years. And I still do, but I see now why someone dismissed it as overly sentimental. And I'm not as struck by the other poems in this collection as I would have thought I'd be — the imagery isn't dramatic or unusual, the vocabulary doesn't do startling things. I'm a little disappointed.
October 8, 2010
"You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
very sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so."
--from "You Can't Have It All"
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
very sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so."
--from "You Can't Have It All"
October 7, 2009
On the whole, a solid collection of poems. Above the usual par for contemporary offerings.
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April 22, 2012Bite Every Sorrow is part of our poetry "essential reading" list.
See the full list here: http://www.literarymama.com/litreflec...
See the full list here: http://www.literarymama.com/litreflec...
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January 14, 2013811.54 R222b 1998
September 16, 2014
a fine collection of poetry. intense and meaningful.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews