Poetic Contradictions With Actual Air

Singer/songwriter David Berman reads from poetry collection at Chicago bookstore

By Chris Nelson. Originally appeared in Sonicnet.

Silver Jews leader David Berman, in town to give a poetry reading, sat straight-backed in the tiny Chinese eatery with nothing before him but a Corona that he had poured into a juice glass. It was an odd juxtaposition - not only the beer in the juice glass, but the Mexican beer in an Asian restaurant. But then, Berman lives and breathes such contradictions - at least in his poetry.

“I think the real unit of a poem is phrases,” said Berman, the singer, songwriter and guitarist whose first book of poetry, “Actual Air,” was published in June. “Most specifically, a noun modified by an adjective that you’ve never seen it modified with before. ” Fans of Berman’s will recognize one such phrase in the Silver Jews’ album title American Water. That 1998 disc included such songs as “Blue Arrangements” and “Random Rules”. “Once I was in school and a teacher said, ‘There aren’t any interesting verbs in (this poem). You always seek interesting object descriptions, but I guess you’re not interested in describing action in a new way,’ ” Berman, 32, recalled in a deep, gentle voice. “My poems are like miniatures. They’re real still. There’s not left hooks and speeding trains and stuff. They always seem boxed in. “That stillness pervades “Actual Air” even more thoroughly than Berman’s work with Silver Jews, a band whose revolving membership often includes Pavement singer Steve Malkmus. Snowfall sets the scene in several of the poems. “When it’s snowing, the outdoors seem like a room,” Berman writes in the opening piece, “Snow. ” He maintains the intimacy but turns the image inside out in “If There Was a Book About This Hallway,” referring to a favorite passageway as “an outdoors that is somehow indoors. ””The Spine of the Snowman” plays again with incongruities, as an old caretaker explains to a robot that when snowmen melt, they sometimes reveal inner constructions, such as a gourd for an organ or a stick for a spine. “The robot shifted uncomfortably in his chair,” Berman writes, striking the reader with the disconcerting notion that some things are so odd as to make even a heartless being squirm.

During his 20-minute poetry reading at Barbara’s Bookstore in the Old Town neighborhood, Berman’s six-foot-three-inch frame loomed tall under a neon sign for the “Kid’s Books” section. He explained that references to middlebrow authors Isaac Asimov and James Michener in several of his poems are not meant as irony. “You get it wrong if you think it’s a joke - about so many things,” he told the audience of about 40 fans.

Earlier, smoking a cigarette outside the store, Berman said Silver Jews’ three albums had provided enough income to subsidize a non-lucrative poetry career. He isn’t generally paid for readings such as this one, and he had to foot the airfare from his home in Nashville. Perhaps that’s why he looked unceremonious in an army-surplus shirt, with a five-o’clock shadow and unwashed, barely combed hair. Might as well be comfortable for a gig that’s not even paying.

Songwriting is not only more profitable but also typically easier than writing poetry, said Berman, who studied poetry at the University of Massachusetts. “If I write a song, I usually start out with the music and then write words to fit into those cadences. I can go anywhere when I sit down with a blank piece of paper (to write a poem). But the flip side of that freedom is there’s a lot more pressure. The limits of songwriting are actually very helpful. “Joe Williams, a 21-year-old fan, was first drawn to Berman’s work through Silver Jews’ albums. He bought “Actual Air” when it was first published in June and drove six hours on Thursday from Ames, Iowa, to hear Berman read. “It’s kind of like audience-participation poetry, where you know what he means,” Williams said. “In my own mind, there’s no doubt that I know what he’s saying or I know what he’s trying to convey. It makes it stick with you that much more. A lot of what he’s saying is relatable and straightforward enough that you really walk away feeling like he told you something. ”