Dreaming As One

by Lewis Warsh

88 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 1971

Reviews

[Sam Lohmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an early (1971) Warsh book with a terrific cover by Joe Brainard (somebody should put a picture on Goodreads). It's very redolent of a particular time and scene--you can see him trying out forms in homage to O'Hara, Berrigan, Whalen, all of whom are invoked both by name and by allusion ("like carrying a hot-dog for lunch / in your pocket, like Reverdy"). Still, the poems are action-packed and completely real, exchanges among friends rather than exercises in a then-emerging genre (New York School poetry or whatever) There are plenty I'd love to read aloud to a friend, if the chance arises--"Ways of Saying Goodbye," "Definition of Great," "What I Learned This Year" (the titles describe the works). We can say glibly that this poetry is about "the everyday," but in fact any given poem is only about that day. If the poems taken together demonstrate the potential of any day, that's evidence not of complacent eclecticism but of audacious imagination, an exacting notational style and a loving openness to the particular.