Rating: 
Summary: lost and found again
Review: A copy of this book is bumping along the bottom of the Colorado River heading toward Lake Mead. But before it went overboard: One afternoon in camp, while someone was cooking dinner, I was reading the Lincoln poem out loud to another guy on the trip. By the time I read a third selection from the book (at my friend's request) five or six other people had gathered around and were listening. I don't think any of us read poetry for recreation, but this book resonates, we could all tell that; and it was written with the ambition of being human, and as Grand as the Canyon. It ticks me off that this review protocal forces me to assign a number of stars. You can't count stars.
Rating: 
Summary: *.*
Review: Actual Air is wonderful. when i read berman's poem about Asimov, the retired cosmonaut in me surfaced and every "wow" that i ever felt in my heart when i was a kid reading science fiction sort of reactivated at once. the tone of his work - - his poems feel very "virginia": it has a delayed wit, a quietude, and a non-pace that seems to validate the assemblage of words beyond the idea of writing poetry. whatever that means. i find that when i read this book for a while and then pick up something else, my mind attempts to read the new text by performing the same little equations that i'd be performing when reading berman's poetry. i guess that's a testimony to this book's uniqueness and the resonance of berman's logic. i gave it four transparent stars... they seem to be far more rare around here, and therefore probably more valuable. buy this book!
Rating: 
Summary: changed me
Review: actual air makes me feel proud to be an American. If this book came from america , and I came from America, things feel better now. I don't know how proud the author is of America, but that's beside the point.I am in the process of telling everyone I know to buy this book , because it is very good. Very good is not enough to say about how good it is, but I feel uncomfortable expressing more fanatical praise, although I probably should - just to get the point across about how very very good the book is. Imagine how good it might be. It is better even, than that.
Rating:
Summary: I was blown away
Review: Beautiful, kind, sweet genius. It's been forever and a day since I've read fictions like these. So....useful to my life. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.
Rating:
Summary: Died for our sins, or to make us feel guilty?
Review: Berman is the best, and only, living american poet. His unassuming posture never lets on to his talent as a shooting gaurd. He will make you wish you had thought of that, and when you try to think of something as witty, you will think of it again and smile. My hats off to you, D.C. you are truly something amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Nice But Been Done
Review: Berman is worshiping at the Church of Bill Knott and exploring the same territory that Knott explored in the 60s and 70s, that Knott acolytes Harrison Fisher did in the 70s and 80s and that Jeff McDaniel has been doing with a more self-deprecating manner through the late 90s. If you like Berman check them out. And check out Ron Koertge's work as well. He's been doing the West Coast version of same for eons now.
Rating:
Summary: He's looking at us all kind of funny
Review: Berman's freshness of spirit and ability to observe telescopically the intimate and intimately the telescopic make me smile. Very few authors (Richard Brautigan included) are able to dream and let it sail like this dude.
Rating:
Summary: As lyrical as the Silver Jews
Review: Berman's lyrics are some of the greatest aspects of his music with the Silver Jews...it's great to see his prose stand alone, and stand so tall. I had lost hope for contemporary American poetry, but now I know that I was terribly, terribly wrong.
Rating:
Summary: david berman's first book leaves a powerfull impression.
Review: bermans poems are delightfull, his wit is alive and relevant. he takes apart the regular inbetween moments we take for granted and lets us appreciate them. never before have a read another persons work and left it so sure that i knew what he had to say, as if his voice was an older, sharper version of our own. to ignore this book of poems is to close your ears to a powerfull voice of the american experiance.
Rating:
Summary: chips ahoy! this is one exciting book of poetry
Review: david berman's interrogation of the nostalgic is well - it's great because it makes me think of the old arrested frontier - i'm a cowboy. youre a cowboy. this is actual, not virtual. this has to do with his capacity to hypostatize the corporeal in a reluctance to get hung up over cookie factories or sliding scale payment plans. the result? it makes you believe in me and me in you. that intersubjectivity that lies at the base of every american community is HERE, actual air - i salute people constantly.
| 
