Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems [Paperback]

Raymond Carver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 12, 1986

A vast collection of poems which won "Poetry" magazine's Levinson prize."Somehow the nuances of daily experience, the warmth, humor, and reflection the poet brings to subjects are quite unlike anyone else's." - J.Parisi

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Best-known for his wonderful short stories (What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, etc.), Carver works the same narrative magic in these poems. In everyday language he offers memories of his family and past loves, uses fishing and hunting events to portray his innermost thoughts about life and death. PW called these poems "accessible and lovely."
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Over the years, Raymond Carver has been writing poetry alongside his fiction -- same of his earlier verse appeared in a recent anthology titled Fires -- and the most vigorous poems in this new collection function as distilled, heightened versions of his stories, offering us fugitive glimpses of ordinary lives on the edge." -- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Carver's voice is direct, his themes universal."

-- The Seattle Past-Intelligencer

"The emotional impact of his scenes and slices of life is imparted without strain; the voice speaks: with such an uncanny directness and ease -- and remarkable intimacy -- that the reader may wander at poem's end how such simplicity can carry such power...Somehow the nuances of daily experience, the warmth, humor, and reflection the poet brings to his subject are quite unlike anyone else's, bath in his immediacy and in the ability to make us identify and be moved. A splendid book."

-- Joseph Parisi, Booklist

"The stories poems tell are so wonderfully self-contained, so self-evident, so gracefully metaphorical." -- The Village Voice

"There is a severity of language, an understatement of emotion, that endows the poem of his first major collection with the feel of extraordinary experience. To read them is to have the sense this man has l lived more than most of us. We trust him because of the plainly conversational diction and the lapel-grabbing rhythms....They are very moving, very memorable."

-- Dave Smith, Poetry

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1 edition (March 12, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039474327X
• ISBN-13: 978-0394743271
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #632,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Raymond Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, in 1938. His father was a saw-mill worker and his mother was a waitress and clerk. He married early and for years writing had to come second to earning a living for his young family. Despite, small-press publication, it was not until Will You Please Be Quiet Please? appeared in 1976 that his work began to reach a wider audience. This was the year in which he gave up alcohol, which had contributed to the collapse of his marriage. In 1977 he met the writer Tess Gallagher, with whom he shared the last eleven years of his life. During this prolific period he wrote three collections of stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Cathedral and Elephant. Fires, a collection of essays, poems and stories, appeared in 1985, followed by three further collections of poetry. In 1988 he completed the poetry collection A New Path to the Waterfall.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughful meditiations that are universal, positive and thoughtful ..., October 31, 2009

By 

R. Neil Scott "Writer, Professor & User Servi... (Murfreesboro, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems (Paperback)

Place a copy on the table by your bed and read a poem or two a night. Carver's thoughtful meditations on what he sees, hears and smells in the world around him will help you relax and think good, deep thoughts as you ponder the joys and sorrows of your own life.

I especially like the story-telling method he uses, first describing something he has seen and then -- before you know it -- he's talking in a universal language of the heart and soul. Yes, he writes in a sort of manly-man language that women may not appreciate, but whether he writing of his daughter trying to explain the energy between him and his ex-wife, camping along the Olympic mountain range, or his realization of his own darker deep-down feelings of love and laziness, his poetry is worthy of attention.

Here are some portions of one of his poems that serves as a good example of his skill and style; it's titled, "Happiness":

So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.

When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.

They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take each others' arm....
[five lines are skipped]

Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond,
really, any early morning talk about it.

It is so tragic that such a voice was stilled at only fifty of lung cancer. A Guggenheim Fellow, awarded NEH Grants and nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize, his three collections of short stories and poetry of this volume serve as present-day evidence in words of the visual dreams he sought to convey.

Highly recommeneded for public and academic library collections and as a gift to those with an open heart seeking greater self-understanding.

Please be sure to indicate if reviews are helpful...

R. Neil Scott
Middle Tennessee State University

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shame, loss, and trying again . . ., June 11, 2005

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems (Paperback)

Carver can break your heart without seeming to try, and there is that quality in many of these poems. Written in the mid 1980s, in the last years before his death, they are that mix of bittersweet memory, melancholy, and joy taken in the here and now. Living with poet Tess Gallagher in a house overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington (Carver grew up in Yakima, Washington), he writes of the days that pass there, the frequent rains and the boats passing on the water, and he tracks the course of fleeting emotions, often triggered by long-forgotten memories.

He has this ability to discover the extraordinary in the absolute ordinary, and he can bring together ideas with images drawn from everyday life that disturb and shock the heart, as when he recalls an old relationship while describing the drops and smears of blood left in a kitchen sink after gutting fish. As with his stories, these poems are written in plain, conversational language while evoking at the same time the darkly inexpressible. Simple and direct on the surface, they are like being in a small boat on deep waters.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving, Flowing, December 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems (Paperback)

This is fine poetry to start Raymond Carver with. "The Ashtray" demonstrates an excellent portrayal of a selfish man and his girlfriend. "My Daughter's Apple Pie" is probably one of Carver's best works as far as showing his understatement style especially with a serious subject (which, actually, is very common with Carver). The book contains everything: nature, death, love, father/son relationships, water, everything. Carver's death is only a loss if you do not read his work.