All of Us: The Collected Poems Read online

  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

  www.vintagebooks.com

  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