Actual Air

Released in paperback in 1999 by the now-defunct Open City and praised everywhere in the then-ascendant print press industry (including names that still make waves today like The New Yorker and GQ), David Berman's first (and only) book of poetry was and is a journey though shared and unreliable memory. Uncannily inspired, Berman's poems walk through doors into rooms where where one might hear I can't remember being born / and no one else can either / even the doctor who I met years later / at a cocktail party (from Self-Portrait at 28 ), or praise the interval called hangover / a sadness not c o-terminous with hopelessness (from Cassette Country ) and that moment when you take off your sunglasses / after a long drive and realize it's earlier / and lighter out than you had accounted for ( The Charm of 5:30 ). At that time, Berman was called a modern-day Wallace Stevens and a next-wave John Ashberry, with his own logic, awareness of pop culture and sensitivity to the details of...