The Poetry of Raymond Carver: Against the Current

199 Pages·2014·0.97 MB·English

by  Carver

The Poetry of Raymond Carver
Against the Current
Sandra Lee Kleppe
The PoeTry of raymond Carver
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The Poetry of raymond Carver
against the Current
Sandra Lee KLePPe
Hedmark University College, Norway
© Sandra Lee Kleppe 2014
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Sandra Lee Kleppe has asserted her right under the Copyright, designs and Patents act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing Limited ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court east 110 Cherry Street
Union road Suite 3-1
farnham Burlington, vT 05401-3818
Surrey, GU9 7PT USa
england
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Kleppe, Sandra Lee, 1964–
The Poetry of raymond Carver: against the Current / by Sandra Lee Kleppe.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4724-1167-9 (hardcover: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4724-1168-6 (ebook)
— ISBN 978-1-4724-1169-3 (epub)
1. Carver, Raymond, 1938–1988—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
PS3553.a7894Z74 2014
813’.54—dc23
2013034265
ISBN: 9781472411679 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781472411686 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN: 9781472411693 (ebk – ePUB)
IV
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Copyright Permissions ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Part I The Autopoetics of Outside and Inside
Section Preface: A Brief History of Intertextuality 15
1 The Autopoetics of Observation 19
2 Crossover Between Poems and Stories 41
Part II Self-Referential Poems
Section Preface: A Brief History of Self-referential Literature 67
3 “All Poems Are Love Poems” 71
4 Water and Fish 91
Part III De/Composition
Section Preface: A Brief History of Literature and Medicine 115
5 Carver’s Baudelaire Sandwich 119
6 What Doctors and Poets Say 139
Conclusion 159
Bibliography 171
Index 179
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Acknowledgements
Anyone who has written a book of this size and scope will know that it takes
thousands of hours of work and concentration to bring it to completion. During
those hours, spread out over several years, many people contributed in small and
large ways to the progression of this book, and I will not be able to acknowledge
them all here. First and foremost, all poems by Raymond Carver cited in this
book are reprinted with permission of the copyright holders, as specified on the
Copyright Permissions Page above. The painting on the cover of this book, Ray’s
Ghost Fish (1994) is a portrait by the artist Alfredo Arreguín, who was a close
friend of Carver. It was commissioned by Carver’s widow Tess Gallagher and
gifted to the North Olympic Library in Port Angeles, Washington, where it hangs
in their “Carver” room. It is reprinted here with permission from the library.
My employer, Hedmark University College, has for the past three years
provided me with a work environment directly conducive to the completion of
the manuscript. My most intense writing period was during the spring semester of
2012, spent as a visiting scholar at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle.
This stay was financed by a generous grant from the Research Council of Norway
through their Leiv Eiriksson mobility program.
Susan Williams of the English Department at the UW and Paul Constantine of
the UW Libraries extended kind invitations to me as a visiting scholar and assisted
with the paperwork and other practicalities that paved the way for a productive
research semester. I am grateful to Sandra Kroupa at the UW special collections,
who gave me access to rare and first editions of Carver’s work, kindly fetching
these gems from the vault, and making copies of particular passages from out-
of-print work not available anywhere on the internet. During my stay in Seattle,
Shanna Nelson provided me with a writing sanctuary in her home, and I could not
have had a better space for my creative and intellectual work, or a more gracious
hostess.
Angela Sorby has read and offered extensive critical feedback on most of the
manuscript at various points of its progression over the years. Her keen insights
and constructive suggestions have made this a better book. The conception and
materialization of this book project has in many ways paralleled the conception
and materialization of The International Raymond Carver Society (IRCS). My
friends and colleagues there represent an intellectual and congenial community
who have provided support, input of ideas, and constructive feedback on what now
seems endless conference papers that tested various chapters as they were coming
into being. Co-founder of the IRCS Robert Miltner has played an especially
important role in this network and all its activities, and his dissertation from 1998,
Sounds Like the Story of A Life: The Poetry of Raymond Carver laid the foundation
viii The Poetry of Raymond Carver
for my own monograph and is a crucial work for any understanding of Carver’s
contribution to American poetry.
My librarian at Hedmark University College, Karianne Hagen, has been a
steadfast assistant in this project over the last three years, embarking on every
wild goose chase for source or citation I requested, ordering copies of articles
and filling the shelves of the college library with relevant works on Carver and
the theoretical topics discussed in this book. I believe our library is becoming
an important center for Carver studies in Scandinavia as a result of this fruitful
collaboration between scholar and librarian.
Perhaps the single most important event in the transition from manuscript to
published book was the report provided by Ashgate’s blind reviewer. Instead of
picking apart the many weaknesses in the draft, for every draft will have some, the
reviewer argued for the necessity of a book on Carver’s poetry career and cogently
presented reasons why this particular book filled that need. I hope readers as well
will be able to overlook any flaws they will encounter herein, so that the book
can point them beyond its own academic talk to the miracles of Carver’s poems
themselves.
Finally, this book is dedicated to my family—my parents, siblings, and son—
the loving scaffold without which nothing of value is possible. And last but not
least, thanks to Tom H. for being on the right pier at the right time.
Copyright Permissions
1. For the United States, Canada, and the Open Market:
For the hardcover edition:
Excerpts from “Looking for Work,” “The Sturgeon,” “The Painter and the Fish,”
“What the Doctor Said,” and “Proposal” from A New Path to the Waterfall
copyright © 1989 by the Estate of Raymond Carver. Used by permission of Grove/
Atlantic, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is
prohibited.
For the hardcover and e-book editions:
Citations from “The Current,” “The Brass Ring,” “Betrayal,” “The Sunbather,
to Herself,” “Woman Bathing,” “For Semra, With Martial Vigor,” “The Blue
Stones,” “Your Dog Dies,” “The Autopsy Room,” “The Man Outside,” “Locking
Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In,” “Distress Sale,” “Late Night with
Fog and Horses,” “Mother,” “Ask Him,” “Near Klamath” “At Night the Salmon
Move,” “Bobber,” “Poem for Dr Pratt, a Lady Pathologist,” “The Mailman as
Cancer Patient,” “A Tall Order,” “Winter Insomnia,” “The River,” “Eagles,”
“Cutlery” and “Letter” are from All of Us: The Collected Poems by Raymond
Carver, copyright © 1996 by Tess Gallagher. Used by permission of Alfred A.
Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material,
outside this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to
Random House, Inc. for permission.
2. For the United Kingdom:
For the hardcover edition:
Citations from “The Current,” “The Brass Ring,” “Betrayal,” “The Sunbather, to
Herself,” “Woman Bathing,” “For Semra, With Martial Vigor,” “The Blue Stones,”
“Your Dog Dies,” “The Autopsy Room,” “The Man Outside,” “Locking Yourself
Out, Then Trying to Get Back In,” “Distress Sale,” “Late Night with Fog and
Horses,” “Mother,” “Ask Him,” “Near Klamath” “At Night the Salmon Move,”
“Bobber,” “Poem for Dr Pratt, a Lady Pathologist,” “The Mailman as Cancer
Patient,” “A Tall Order,” “Winter Insomnia,” “The River,” “Eagles,” “Cutlery,”
“Letter,” “Looking for Work,” “The Sturgeon,” “The Painter and the Fish,” “What
the Doctor Said,” and “Proposal” are from All of Us by Raymond Carver. Published
by Harvill Press. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited.