I had a really great poetry teacher in school. Funny. Smart. Great bullshit detector. Seriously, almost frighteningly attuned to suss out if you were full of it.
One of our assignments was a poetry portfolio, one where we were to collect a couple dozen poems we loved, then supplement them with a few of our own.
It was easily one of the most difficult assignments I’d ever done.
The thing is, filling the binder with a couple dozen poets was easy. Philip Levine, Denver Butson, Donald Hall. And Raymond Carver. Because there always has to be Raymond Carver.
In the portfolio she wrote notes on some things. Not everything. Just a few. On the Donald Hall, she wrote, I like him, but I miss Jane Kenyon. On one of mine, she wrote something about how it sounded like something written by someone much older.
On the Raymond Carver, she wrote only, “Oh, Ray…”
Because what else can you say?
The thing that made the assignment so impossible was being a student and putting your own words next to someone like a Raymond Carver. Who has it in them to think they deserve to be right there next to Raymond Carver, a man whose power is such that when confronted with him, a woman of many incredible words can only say, “Oh, Ray…”?
Reviewing books is the same way. How do you talk about something really beautiful without tarnishing a little bit about what makes it so gorgeous?
Stay Here With Me is gorgeous, and it’s unforgiving in being so damn pretty.
It’s a great read if you’re the kind of person who rereads sentences. Like this one:
“I knew no one who spoke as she did, whose words were like touch.”
See? What the hell am I supposed to do with that?