I see that gift now as a turning point.” - Very important to have a space where you can write undisturbed. “He knew I had a young family and cramped quarters at home. When dealing with teachers and peers, let all these distracting inessentials go and focus on the writing. I’m saying that Gardner looked very square.” - Art and literature transcend haircuts, clothing, regional twangs, foreign accents and other such superficialities. He always wore a black suit, a white shirt, and a tie. “The truth is, in those days he looked and dressed like a Presbyterian minister, or an FBI man. Even if we only write a few lines in our diary or notebook once, twice, thrice every day, our dedication and perseverance will pay off.

Raymond Carver urges us to keep at it, not to quit, no matter how much the odds are stacked against us. “I had this very strong desire to write, it was a desire so strong that, with the encouragement I was given in college, and the insight acquired, I kept on writing long after “good sense” and the “cold facts” – the “realities” of my life told me, time and again, that I ought to quit, stop the dreaming, quietly go ahead and do something else.” - Unfortunately, when our lives becomes overwhelming, the first thing that tends to go is our writing. To provide a small taste, below are several quotes from John Gardner, Writer as Teacher along with my comments: Thirdly, there are four short Carver essays: on life, on inspiration, on writing, on teaching. To be sure, a Raymond Carver poem worth the price of admission. well, let’s just call it Carver magic.Īnd for those readers who enjoy poetry, there are fifty-two Carver poems collected here, my very favorite poem capturing an evening with Charles Bukowski, where 51-year old Hank rants on about being madly in love with a 25-year-old beauty, a sassy lass who calls him Bukowski in her little voice rants about how he’s the only one in the room who knows anything about life, about love how he’s the one and only true living poet how he shouldn’t start drinking the hard stuff or else he’ll throw everyone’s no-talent ass out the window. Crafted in clear, clean, sparse prose, one wonders how Ray can pull it off, but he does, his writing possessing that special something, that distinct, singular voice, that.

This book collects seven stories told with such care and tenderness, it is as if Raymond Carver lets us hold the warm, beating heart of each of his characters, woman or man, girl or boy, in our trembling hands. And after reading yet again this past week, I must say Carver's words get even better with age.

“That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.”īack in the 1980s when this collection of essays, poems and stories was first published as part of the Vintage Contemporaries series, I read again and again.

Fires by raymond carver