Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts by Lawrence Raab

by Lawrence Raab

Pretend that these poems by Lawrence Raab have come to you from very far away. Think of them as written by Poet Z, a heretofore-unheard-of Eastern European poet, a Kafka-Andrade-Calvino character from Serbo-Chechnya-Lithuania. What's in his poems? Angels and human monsters, decades and generations, universities turned into ashes, the consolation of philosophy, despair in the middle of the night, a tutorial in lucid dreaming. Only his poetic humor gives away his American citizenship. His poems lead you into, then trap you, in strange worlds, boxes constructed of story, logic, and aphorism, which then are revealed to be exactly like life itself. Now, these poems by Z have finally been translated into an American idiom that is canny, sly, defeated, pessimistic, resilient, and perplexingly knowledgeable about the human predicament. They are also often beautiful, bewildered, disquieting, and full of paradoxical laughter and contemplative solace. Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts is a tender, lonely, deeply intelligent tour of that distinctive country of the soul.

Genres: Poetry

Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 2015

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because it was longlisted for the National Book Award for poetry.

I found some great poems in here. Some favorites, which happen to share mortality as a central theme (it seems that many poems do, really):

The Mortality of Books

I Was Just Wondering
"If the universe keeps expanding,
where is it going, and what
was here before? Don't tell me nothing.
If God made us, and was pleased,

why did he decide to add
the Japanese beetle? Or the deer tick?
Or any kind of disease that steals your mind?...

And if we say we love what fades
because it fades, how will we feel
when we start to forget?
Don't tell me we shouldn't be afraid."

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

they made me think - lift my head and look out the window and think.
there were some that made me relate so much - how did he put into words the vague feeling that I wasn't sure other people had?
but, of course, there is sad wrong to sift through. wrong in the way of questioning or rejecting God. it shows how you can know some of the right concepts, but God is the one who opens your heart and gives you faith.

[Nevaeh Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

maybe I just did a bad job reading this but I did not enjoy it at all

[Phoebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

i find most poetry collections uneven, but this is particularly lopsided imo. to me, the first half really banged and the second half failed to really get me. the poems i most connected to were (naturally lol) the ones about depression, the ways we fail to connect with each other, and fixating on the past and enduring moments you realize will be memories you later romanticize. excerpts from two of my fave poems:

"My Father's Question"
Is there anything you want to know?
my father once asked me. I can't picture
the scene. Were we out on the lawn?
Was baseball involved? No, I said,

taken by surprise. And he turned away,
embarrassed and relieved.
But he must have understood
that wasn't the right question, not even close.

How many questions aren't even close?
How many times are we given a moment
that could be important, then isn't?
[...]
What would you have told me
if I'd been able to ask?
Look—even now
I'm only pretending to speak to you.

"At About This Hour"
And then someone whose name I can't recall
asked someone else: "Why do you want
to remember the past?" And I thought:
Do we have a choice? Doesn't it just return?
In a few days I'd be gone, but maybe
one night at about this hour I'd stop
and think back. Would I wish
I were here?—the party over, the lightning
fading away beyond the mountains,
and on the road all those travelers—
so many destinations ahead of them,
so many chances of arriving unharmed."

[LYS. · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Death is easier / than love. And true feeling, as someone said, / leaves no memory.” —“The Major Subjects,” page 35

raab uses such simple language to say something incredibly insightful. i must say though, THE HISTORY OF FORGETTING is his best work to me but this one is still really good (also did so much for my characters fr)

[Ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You were sick, I say,
but now you're better. You went away,
but now you're back. How foolish I was
to miss you for no reason."
-Lawrence Raab, A Cup of Water Turns Into a Rose

That stanza resonanted with me so deeply I had to start off with. I feel that it would resonate with anyone who has lost a loved one and then dreamt of them. It grabbed and shook my heartstrings. Many of the poems in Raab's poetry collection, Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts, did that.

I like reading poetry but I don't read enough of k
it which is especially odd since I "write" poetry too. Raab's poetry is very relevant and ethereal. It has a very phantom - like quality to it and it is very Kafka-esque. It must of been how Michael Enslin felt in "1408."

There were some poems that stood out: If I Knew What He Knew, The Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, A Plain White Envelope, The Truth of the Cookie, The System, My Father's Question, Restoration.

The System had this particular line: What you can't have you don't need. What you were never given you can never lose. This poem is about the rich and the poor and those two lines nailed it.

Of course, my Hamlet lovin' heart adored Ophelia at Home which details an alternate universe of Shakespeare's play Hamlet where Ophelia never drowned. Instead, she conquered her inner demons, moved from Denmark, got married and had children. It was nice.

The concluding epic, A Cup of Water Turns Into a Rose, is a mishmash hodgepodge of emotions and feelings that made me sad and wistful. I'm definitely reading more of Raab's works in the future.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots I liked here, and lots that didn't do much for me. Personal favorites:

1. I Was Just Wondering
2. Last Day on Earth
3. The Sirens (particularly the last few lines)
4. Ophelia at Home
5. Original Sin

It's interesting that the ones I liked best all had to do with mortality and the unknown--but Raab really has a knack for creating this sort of melancholy, eerie space in his poems when he talks about these things, and it made me feel uncomfortable in a really good way.

[SLT · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect blend of philosophy and despair. Mysterious. Some dark. Yet also, somehow, comforting. Wonderful.

[in8 · Rating 2 out of 5]

https://www.5cense.com/20/713.htm

[Shachar · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars / 5 Stars

Some of the poems were great, some of them went completely over my head. The poem titled “Testament” may be one of my favorite poems that I’ve ever read in my life.

[Byram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read quite a bit of Lawrence Raab's poetry. I'm by no means an expert or aficionado on it, but enough to know that he is consistently solid with smatterings of lyrical and thematic brilliance that comes to fore. In this most recent collection, longlisted for the National Book Award for poetry, he explores themes surrounding getting older: meaningful existences, life after death, the meaning and fading of memory. There are a few shine-through examples in the first three sections of his book, but they all play off each other thematically dancing around the same themes with flair and grace. But little does one know that this is all build-up to his culminating poetry narrative that occupies the remaining third of his book, a meandering yet story-like exploration of living, loving, and fading into the world after the living world. It's loose yet connected, straight-forward yet complex, its poignancy constantly hitting you in unexpected ways. The collection is solid Raab, but this multi-sectioned poem that closes out the last third of the book is what makes this collection truly remarkable and establishes Raab as a poetic master, in my estimation.

[Hope L. Justice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn't as moving as some of his contemporaries, but these poems are careful and restrained. Part 4 of the collection really pulls the entirety together and delicately touches memory, mortality, and love. An extraordinary collection, that set itself apart from others in the last movement.

[Seth Fiegerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny and often poignant collection of poems about the dangers of dwelling too much on the past.

"Forget the past if you can," Raab writes. "It's never over. And then it is."

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't finish this before I had to return it to the library, but what I read was great! I'd like to read more of his poetry.

[Breeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my very favorite poetry collections. <3