David Berman is a young Virginian poet with a sly, intense regard for the past. He comes on like a prankster, restocking the imperial orations of Wallace Stevens and the byzantine monologues of John Ashberry with the pop-cultural bric-a-brac of a new generation: ‘I am not a cub scout seduced by Iron Maiden’s mirror worlds.’ But his words have an easy, eloquent gait; each line needs to be a line. The landscapes are crisply American, and history, especially Southern history casts a shadow. A poem about the death of Lincoln ends, ‘The assassin was in mid-air / when the stagehands wheeled out clouds.’ —The New Yorker, Oct 4, 1999

David Berman‘s Actual Air is one of the most coveted books on my shelf.

I originally picked it up because the cover design reminded me of Henry Miller’s The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (which coincidentally has some beautiful display errors going on at Google). It was the first collection of poems that deeply inspired and moved me since scouring Powells Books for every original printing of Richard Brautigan’s writings I could find and devour. I’ve bought dozens of copies of Actual Air for friends and family and plan to do so until one or the other runs out.

After posting about Open Field from the new Silver Jews release, Look Out Mountain, Look Out Sea, I dug through backups in search of the only two recordings of Berman reading I was aware of. I ended up finding them at The Corduroy Suit, along with a newfound recording from an Impossible Shapes show (Live at 2nd Story). Either this is it, or I’m not looking in the right place. If anyone out there is aware of more, please (please) let me know.

In the meantime, enjoy Idle Hour, an all too brief collection of readings by David Berman and another bundled repackaging following in the same vein as my previous two (here and here). This time with the jacket shot by Bobbi Fabian instead of my own.

David Berman: Idle Hour (3.4mb, mp3.zip, MF)

via: The Corduroy Suit (Actual Air/Biblio/Interviews) / Open City / Drag City / More Interviews: 01/02/03/04 / Silver Jews / Silver Jew trailer / Bobbi Fabian Photography