11.14.14

Another chapbook I picked up recently is Where Water Comes Together with Other Water by Raymond Carver. Carver is well-known for his re-popularization of the short story in the 1980s (all this from the pedia of wikis). Born in Oregon and raised in Washington, Carver married early and worked a series of jobs to support his family. Moving to California, he began taking writer's courses, and traveled to Iowa for an MA that he didn't finish there. He eventually graduated and began to teach English, among other work. His patchwork story eventually led to publication, teaching at universities (including my alma mater), and accolades for his writing.

That patchwork wasn't always rosy, or easy, as Carver struggled with alcoholism and its associated effects on his work, marriage, and health. Most of the pieces are somewhat long, but worth re-posting. Carver's voice is conversational, casual, but manages to have a classic tone and deals equally well with "high" and "low" themes.

A Forge, and a Scythe

One minute I had the windows open
and the sun was out. Warm breezes
blew through the room.
(I remarked on this in a letter.)
Then, while I watched, it grew dark.
The water began whitecapping.
All the sport-fishing boats turned
ad headed in, a little fleet.
Those wind-chimes on the porch
blew down. The tops of our trees shook.
The stove pipe squeaked and rattled
around in its moorings.
I said, "a forge, and a scythe."
I talk to myself like this.
Saying the names of things--
capstan, hawser, loam, leaf, furnace.
Your face, your mouth, your shoulder
inconceivable to me now!
Where did they go? It's like
I dreamed them. The stones we brought
home from the beach lie face up
on the windowsill, cooling.
Come home. Do you hear?
My lungs are thick with the smoke
of your absence.


I like the casual narration of this poem, as if the speaker is dictating. The sudden drama of the tempest becomes more like an anecdote told over the fence to a neighbor. There is a great deal of looking back in his works, something that I enjoy from Imagist poetry, of using a moment to illustrate another, but Carver isn't married to the supposed significance of that moment, other than what it makes the speaker experience. His poem Hominy and Rain is a similar moment, but the speaker cannot pin down what about it was so memorable, or why it was important to remember.


In a little patch of ground beside
the wall of the Earth Sciences building,
a man in a canvas hat was on
his knees doing something in the rain
with some plants. Piano music
came from an upstairs window
in the building next door. Then
the music stopped.
And the window was brought down.

You told me those white blossoms
on the cherry trees in the Quad
smelled like a can of just-opened
hominy. Hominy. They reminded you
of that. This may or may not
be true. I can’t say.
I’ve lost my sense of smell,
along with any interest I may ever
have expressed in working
on my knees with plants, or
vegetables. There was a barefoot

madman with a ring in his ear
playing his guitar and singing
reggae. I remember that.
Rain puddling around his feet.
The place he’d picked to stand
had Welcome Fear
painted on the sidewalk in red letters.

At the time it seemed important
to recall the man on his knees
in front of his plants.
The blossoms. Music of one kind,
and another. Now I’m not so sure.
I can’t say, for sure.

Its a little like some tiny cave-in,
in my brain. There’s a sense
that I’ve lost – not everything,
not everything, but far too much.
A part of my life forever.
I like hominy.

Even though your arm stayed linked
in mine. Even though that. Even
though we stood quietly in the
doorway as the rain picked up.
And watched it without saying
anything. Stood quietly.
At peace, I think. Stood watching
the rain. While the one
with the guitar played on.