Acclaim for RAYMOND CARVER’s
All of Us
“Raymond Carver wrote beautiful poems: tender, lucid and direct. If he hadn’t written his stories, he would be acknowledged as the splendid poet he is. But, like Thomas Hardy, the prose overshadows the poems. That is bound to change with time, as it has with Hardy, another formidable artist in both genres.”
— Carolyn Kizer
“Among the great American writers of the 20th century, no question, Carver is the most endearing. He carries our humanity into the 21st.”
— Hayden Carruth
“Carver’s mature poetry shares many of the strengths of his short stories—a compassion that never makes excuses or romanticizes, and a directness that is never merely prosaic. This poetry hits home.… [T]he major poems embed themselves in the memory with the honed simplicity of a blues riff.”
—Poetry Flash
“[Carver’s poetry is] infused with a largesse of spirit that adds a new dimension to the impression of the man left by the cool perfection of his stories.… The cumulative effect is exhilarating.”
—Times Literary Supplement (London)
“Carver is a writer of immense consequence. The best of his poems become unforgettable even as one reads them for the first time. They are like traffic accidents, or miraculous escapes. We come away gasping, shaken, and in awe.”
—Greg Kuzma, Michigan Quarterly Review
“These poems evoke the landscape of Carver’s native Pacific Northwest perhaps even more vividly than his fiction does, stripping away everything extraneous or superficial and taking us to emotional bedrock.… [His poetry] reads with a spare, stoic power … often breath-taking.”
—Seattle Times
“[Carver] made the ordinary extraordinary, and we continue to be enthralled by the deftness of his touch and the humanness of the predicament.”
—Newsday
“[Carver’s] poems are full of precise image and unadorned truth.”
—Miami Herald
“This is writing stripped of pretense.… It is ultimately a meditation on the things which shape all of our lives: loneliness, fear, hope, loss, love. More than anything, love.”
—Independent (London)
BOOKS BY RAYMOND CARVER
FICTION
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
Furious Seasons and Other Stories
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Cathedral
Where I’m Calling From
POETRY
Near Klamath
Winter Insomnia
At Night the Salmon Move
Where Water Comes Together with Other Water
All of Us
Ultramarine
A New Path to the Waterfall
PROSE AND POETRY
Fires: Essays, Poems, and Stories
POSTHUMOUSLY PUBLISHED
Short Cuts: Selected Stories
Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose
All of Us: The Collected Poems
FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EBOOK EDITION, MAY 2015
Copyright © 1996 by Tess Gallagher
Editor’s preface, commentary, and notes copyright © 1996 by William L. Stull
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in Britain by The Harvill Press, London, in 1996, and subsequently in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 1998. Subsequently published in trade paperback by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 2000.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Contemporaries and colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98—15880
Poems from the collections Where Water Comes Together with Other Water by Raymond Carver, copyright © 1984, 1985 by Tess Gallagher, and Ultramarine by Raymond Carver, copyright © 1986 by Tess Gallagher, are reprinted here by permission of Random House, Inc.
The Introduction to A New Path to the Waterfall by Tess Gallagher, copyright © 1989 by Tess Gallagher, is reprinted here as Appendix 2.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Dilia: “Wet Picture” by Jaroslav Seifert, translated by Ewald Osers, from Selected Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert. Reprinted by permission of the Heirs of Jaroslav Seifert, administered by DILIA. The Ecco Press: “Gift” by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Czeslaw Milosz; “Return to Krakow in 1880” by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass; “Ars Poetica?” by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Lillian Vallee, from The Collected Poems 1931—1987 by Czeslaw Milosz, copyright © 1988 by Czeslaw Milosz Royalties, Inc. “The Name” from Selected Poems of 1954—1986 by Tomas Transtromer, edited by Robert Hass, translated by Robert Bly, translation copyright © 1987 by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission of The Ecco Press. The Estate of William Matthews: Excerpt from “Cows Grazing at Sunset” from Flood by William Matthews, copyright © William Matthews (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1982). Reprinted by permission of The Estate of William Matthews. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.: Excerpts from “Across Siberia,” “The Peasants,” “Perpetuum Mobile,” “An Unpleasantness,” and “A Visit to Friends” from The Unknown Chekhov: Stories and Other Writings of Anton Chekhov Hitherto Unpublished, translated by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, translation copyright © 1954 by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, translation copyright renewed 1982 by Ms. Babette Deutsch Yarmolinsky. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. The Gallery Press: Excerpt from “Mt. Gabriel” from Antarctica by Derek Mahon (1985). Reprinted by permission of the author and The Gallery Press. A. P. Watt Ltd.: Excerpts from “The Privy Councillor,” “The Wife,” “Difficult People,” and “A Dreary Story” from The Wife and Other Stories, excerpt from “The Bird Market” from The Cook’s Wedding and Other Stories, excerpts from “A Nightmare” and “Ward No. 6” from The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Wyatt Ltd. on behalf of The Executors of the Estate of Constance Garnett.
The Notes (see this page) give details of first publication, small-press and limited edition publication of works by Raymond Carver and constitute a continuation of this copyright page.
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-375-70380-5
eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-97053-9
Cover design by Buchanan-Smith LLC
Cover photograph © Todd Hido / Edge Reps
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v3.1
Note to Reader of the eBook Edition
Poetry is made of lines, and therefore it is important that the calibration of the size of the page and font adhere to a size that allows Raymond Carver’s original line breaks to appear for the reader.
Raymond Carver was especially particular about his line breaks, so the closest reading experience to his intentions for his poems will be had by adjusting the font-size setting on your e-reader until the line below fits on your screen.
and reading to me about Anna Akhmatova’s stay there with Modigliani.
All of us, all of us, all of us
trying to save
our immortal souls, some ways
seemingly more round-
about and mysterious
than others.
from “In Switzerland”
I dedicate this edition of Raymond Carver’s poems
to four couples, dear sustaining friends to Ray
/>
and me: Bill and Maureen, Harold and Lynne,
Alfredo and Susan, Dick and Dorothy.
T.G.
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Reader of the eBook Edition
Epigraph
Dedication
Editor’s Preface by William L. Stull
Introduction by Tess Gallagher
FIRES (1983)
I
Drinking While Driving
Luck
Distress Sale
Your Dog Dies
Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year
Hamid Ramouz (1818—1906)
Bankruptcy
The Baker
Iowa Summer
Alcohol
For Semra, with Martial Vigor
Looking for Work [1]
Cheers
Rogue River Jet-Boat Trip, Gold Beach, Oregon, July 4, 1977
II
You Don’t Know What Love Is
III
Morning, Thinking of Empire
The Blue Stones
Tel Aviv and Life on the Mississippi
The News Carried to Macedonia
The Mosque in Jaffa
Not Far from Here
Sudden Rain
Balzac
Country Matters
This Room
Rhodes
Spring, 480 BC
IV
Near Klamath
Autumn
Winter Insomnia
Prosser
At Night the Salmon Move
With a Telescope Rod on Cowiche Creek
Poem for Dr Pratt, a Lady Pathologist
Wes Hardin: From a Photograph
Marriage
The Other Life
The Mailman as Cancer Patient
Poem for Hemingway & W.C. Williams
Torture
Bobber
Highway 99E from Chico
The Cougar
The Current
Hunter
Trying to Sleep Late on a Saturday Morning in November
Louise
Poem for Karl Wallenda, Aerialist Supreme
Deschutes River
Forever
WHERE WATER COMES TOGETHER WITH OTHER WATER (1985)
I
Woolworth’s, 1954
Radio Waves
Movement
Hominy and Rain
The Road
Fear
Romanticism
The Ashtray
Still Looking Out for Number One
Where Water Comes Together with Other Water
II
Happiness
The Old Days
Our First House in Sacramento
Next Year
To My Daughter
Anathema
Energy
Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In
Medicine
Wenas Ridge
Reading
Rain
Money
Aspens
III
At Least
The Grant
My Boat
The Poem I Didn’t Write
Work
In the Year 2020
The Juggler at Heaven’s Gate
My Daughter and Apple Pie
Commerce
The Fishing Pole of the Drowned Man
A Walk
My Dad’s Wallet
IV
Ask Him
Next Door
The Caucasus: A Romance
A Forge, and a Scythe
The Pipe
Listening
In Switzerland
V
A Squall
My Crow
The Party
After Rainy Days
Interview
Blood
Tomorrow
Grief
Harley’s Swans
VI
Elk Camp
The Windows of the Summer Vacation Houses
Memory [I]
Away
Music
Plus
All Her Life
The Hat
Late Night with Fog and Horses
Venice
The Eve of Battle
Extirpation
The Catch
My Death
To Begin With
The Cranes
VII
A Haircut
Happiness in Cornwall
Afghanistan
In a Marine Light near Sequim, Washington
Eagles
Yesterday, Snow
Reading Something in the Restaurant
A Poem Not against Songbirds
Late Afternoon, April 8, 1984
My Work
The Trestle
For Tess
ULTRAMARINE (1986)
I
This Morning
What You Need for Painting
An Afternoon
Circulation
The Cobweb
Balsa Wood
The Projectile
The Mail
The Autopsy Room
Where They’d Lived
Memory [2]
The Car
Stupid
Union Street: San Francisco, Summer 1975
Bonnard’s Nudes
Jean’s TV
Mesopotamia
The Jungle
Hope
The House behind This One
Limits
The Sensitive Girl
II
The Minuet
Egress
Spell
From the East, Light
A Tall Order
The Author of Her Misfortune
Powder-Monkey
Earwigs
NyQuil
The Possible
Shiftless
The Young Fire Eaters of Mexico City
Where the Groceries Went
What I Can Do
The Little Room
Sweet Light
The Garden
Son
Kafka’s Watch
III
The Lightning Speed of the Past
Vigil
In the Lobby of the Hotel del Mayo
Bahia, Brazil
The Phenomenon
Wind
Migration
Sleeping
The River
The Best Time of the Day
Scale
Company
Yesterday
The Schooldesk
Cutlery
The Pen
The Prize
An Account
The Meadow
Loafing
Sinew
Waiting
IV
The Debate
Its Course
September
The White Field
Shooting
The Window
Heels
The Phone Booth
Cadillacs and Poetry
Simple
The Scratch
Mother
The Child
The Fields
After Reading Two Towns in Provence
Evening
The Rest
Slippers
Asia
The Gift
A NEW PATH TO THE WATERFALL (1989)
Gift (Czeslaw Milosz)
I
Wet Picture (Jaroslav Seifert)
Thermopylae
Two Worlds
Smoke and Deception (Anton Chekhov)
In a Greek Orthodox Church near Daphne
For the Record
Transformation
Threat
Conspirators
This Word Love
Don’t Run (Chekhov)
Woman Bathing
II
The Name (Tomas Tranströmer)
Looking for Work [2]
The World Book Salesman
The Toes
The Moon, the Train
Two Carriages (Chekhov)
Miracle
My Wife
Wine
After the Fire (Chekhov)
III
from A Journal of Southern Rivers (Charles Wright)
The Kitchen
Songs in the Distance (Chekhov)
Suspenders
What You Need to Know for Fishing (Stephen Oliver)
Oyntment to Alure Fish to the Bait (James Chetham)
The Sturgeon
Night Dampness (Chekhov)
Another Mystery
IV
Return to Kraków in 1880 (Czeslaw Milosz)
Sunday Night
The Painter & the Fish
At Noon (Chekhov)
Artaud
Caution
One More
At the Bird Market (Chekhov)
His Bathrobe Pockets Stuffed with Notes
The March into Russia
Some Prose on Poetry
Poems
Letter
The Young Girls
V
from Epilogue (Robert Lowell)
The Offending Eel
Sorrel (Chekhov)
The Attic
Margo
On an Old Photograph of My Son
Five O’Clock in the Morning (Chekhov)
Summer Fog
Hummingbird
Out
Downstream (Chekhov)
The Net
Nearly
VI
Foreboding (Chekhov)
Quiet Nights
Sparrow Nights (Chekhov)
Lemonade
Such Diamonds (Chekhov)
Wake Up
What the Doctor Said
Let’s Roar, Your Honor (Chekhov)
Proposal
Cherish
Gravy
No Need
Through the Boughs
Afterglow
Late Fragment
APPENDIXES:
1. Uncollected Poems: No Heroics, Please (1991)
The Brass Ring
Beginnings
On the Pampas Tonight
Those Days
The Sunbather, to Herself
No Heroics, Please
Adultery
Poem on My Birthday, July 2
Return
For the Egyptian Coin Today, Arden, Thank You
In the Trenches with Robert Graves
The Man Outside
Seeds
Betrayal
The Contact
Something Is Happening
A Summer in Sacramento