A New Path to the Waterfall

by Carver, Raymond; Gallagher, Tess

• ISBN13: 9780871133748
• ISBN10: 0871133741
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-01-13
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press

Summary

Raymond Carver, author of Where I'm Calling From, is widely considered one of the great short story writers of our time. A New Path to the Waterfall was Carver's last book, and shows a writer telling the truth as best as he knows how in the time left to him. The sixty-odd poems in this collection are linked by Carver with selections from other writers, most notably Chekhov, whose work was an inspiration and a guide, and by the cumulative force of the life and death questions he poses in them. As Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet guided countless readers discovering their true love and work, Carver's book will guide those in the process of celebrating a limited life and mourning the inescapable end of it. A New Path to the Waterfall is an essential book for those who admire Carver's work, and testament to the transcendent strength of the human spirit. In her introductory essay, Tess Gallagher, Carver's companion and fellow writer, lays out the circumstances of their last years together with matter-of-fact grace.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xvii
Tess Gallagher
I
Wet Picture	3	(2)
Jaroslav Seifert
Thermopylae	5	(1)
Two Worlds	6	(1)
Smoke and Deception	7	(1)
Anton Chekhov
In a Greek Orthodox Church near Daphne	8	(1)
For the Record	9	(1)
Transformation	10	(2)
Threat	12	(1)
Conspirators	13	(1)
This Word Love	14	(1)
Don't Run	15	(1)
Chekhov
Woman Bathing	16	(1)
II
The Name	17	(2)
Tomas Transtromer
Looking for Work	19	(1)
The World Book Salesman	20	(1)
The Toes	21	(2)
The Moon, The Train	23	(2)
Two Carriages	25	(1)
Chekhov
Miracle	26	(5)
My Wife	31	(1)
Wine	32	(2)
After the Fire	34	(1)
Chekhov
III
A Journal of Southern Rivers	35	(2)
Charles Wright
The Kitchen	37	(2)
Songs in the Distance	39	(1)
Chekhov
Suspenders	40	(2)
What You Need to Know for Fishing	42	(1)
Stephen Oliver
Oyntment to Alure Fish to the Bait	43	(1)
James Chetham
The Sturgeon	44	(3)
Night Dampness	47	(1)
Chekhov
Another Mystery	48	(3)
IV
Return to Krakow in 1880	51	(2)
Czeslaw Milosz
Sunday Night	53	(1)
The Painter & the Fish	54	(3)
At Noon	57	(1)
Chekhov
Artaud	58	(1)
Caution	59	(1)
One More	60	(3)
At the Bird Market	63	(1)
Chekhov
His Bathrobe Pockets Stuffed with Notes	64	(3)
The March into Russia	67	(1)
Some Prose on Poetry	68	(4)
Poems	72	(1)
Letter	73	(2)
The Young Girls	75	(2)
V
Epilogue	77	(2)
Robert Lowell
The Offending Eel	79	(4)
Sorrel	83	(1)
Chekhov
The Attic	84	(1)
Margo	85	(1)
On an Old Photograph of My Son	86	(3)
Five O'Clock in the Morning	89	(1)
Chekhov
Summer Fog	90	(2)
Hummingbird	92	(1)
Out	93	(2)
Downstream	95	(1)
Chekhov
The Net	96	(1)
Nearly	97	(4)
VI
Foreboding	101	(2)
Chekhov
Quiet Nights	103	(1)
Sparrow Nights	104	(1)
Chekhov
Lemonade	105	(4)
Such Diamonds	109	(1)
Chekhov
Wake Up	110	(3)
What the Doctor Said	113	(1)
Let's Roar, Your Honor	114	(1)
Chekhov
Proposal	115	(2)
Cherish	117	(1)
Gravy	118	(1)
No Need	119	(1)
Through the Boughs	120	(1)
After-glow	121	(1)
Late Fragment	122