A New Path to the Waterfall

Gravy and Late Fragment are two of the most beautiful and powerful poems I know . . . .

This was Raymond Carver's 11th and apparently last book of poems, published after his death by his wife Tess Gallagher, who writes a long, thoughtful introduction describing Carver's last months before dying of cancer at age 50. Unlike his previous collection, "Where Water Comes Together With Other Water," this book has a number of poems that are more dream-like and surreal, the references not always easy to grasp. There are story poems that resemble the characters and situations in his short stories. And there are brief selections from the writings and poems of Anton Chekhov, Czeslaw Milosz, and others, which provide an allusive context of ideas and images for Carver's own poems. There is the usual melancholy and awareness of death in these poems, made more riveting by the knowledge of the poet's awareness of his own approaching death. Reading his words and apprehending the emotions they convey, you find yourself treasuring deeply your own living moments - all of them, ordinary or extraordinary as they may be. The poems are variations on related themes, ideas and observations captured and rendered in a wide variety of moods. There is sad bitterness in a poem about his son, "On an Old Photograph Of My Son." There are memories of boyhood in Yakima and a memoir-like fragment in "Some Prose on 'Poetry'," describing a stranger's gift of poetry books to him at an impressionable age. "His Bathrobe Pockets Stuffed With Notes" is a playful catalog of random thoughts entertained and then dismissed as "horsing around." Another poem, rich with evocative detail, illustrates the creative process, "The Painter & the Fish." There are love poems, a sadly humorous poem about his toes, and a poem about the excesses of Alexander the Great. It's a fine book, a great reminder of things that really matter - of living the dwindling days wholeheartedly.

This is Raymond Carver's last collection of poems. It was put together with the help of the love and companion of the last eleven years of his life, the writer Tess Gallagher. She also includes a long introduction to the work explaining the process of the book's making. Carver is a poet of directness, simplicity, emotional courage. His poems are often stories built around direct observations or statements of his present mood, a mood that is also reflective on other times of life. The poems which I believe are most moving often have to do with relationships, with his father, with his former wife, with his children. His world is often a disordered and painful one, the alcoholic's world , the world of those in debt and down. But there is in him almost always a redemptive appreciation of life, a certain hidden joy and emotional surprise which gives the poems their special life. Among the beautiful poems of this work is one called 'Cherish' in which he tells of the tenderness in his relationship with Tess Gallagher. I was very moved by the last poem , a fragment that sums up the man and the redemptive power of his work. LATE FRAGMENT And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

I've read this book a number of times now and it never fails to move me deeply. The 14 page introduction by Tess Gallagher, a touching account Carver's final months and their efforts to compile this collection in the face of his impending death, brings the poems to life and gives them an added urgency and passionate clear sightedness. At times ironic, at times a sardonic observor of life's foibles, and at times utterly transparent and vulnerable, Carver is never less than a great crafter of poetic visions.

this is real poetry. raymond carver is a reflective and insightful poet. there is no denying his powerful way with words. there is a warmth and closeness to his tales that seem painfully close to real life, to our lives. there are also verses by Chekov who is just incredible. i can not describe the visions speaking in this book. But they move and surge and plunge into your heart and speak clearly.