Still Water: Prose Poems

by Art Garfunkel

A series of autobiographical prose poems and interviews that explore Garfunkel's inner thoughts, musicial career, travels, and loves

Genres: Poetry

119 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 1989

About the author

Art Garfunkel is an American singer-songwriter and actor, best known as half of the Grammy Award winning folk duo Simon and Garfunkel.

Reviews

[Anja i jej bad takes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't worry king I saw your bisexual poetry

[Joanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a poet, Art Garfunkel sure has a great singing voice. Not one of the pieces in this collection would ever have been worthy of publication if it wasn't for him being famous. The book peaks very early - the second poem in the collection is far and away the best and most engaging. The rest of the volume contains eighty two other generously self-identified 'prose poems.' A less generous reader might refer to them instead, and more accurately, as disjointed and unedited ramblings. It also includes several sections of 'interviews' where an unidentified and uncredited 'interviewer' asks Art Garfunkel questions about music, poetry, art, and America. By the end of the book, it was abundantly clear that Art Garfunkel at this time was so in love with himself that he might very well have been playing the role of both interviewer and celebrity for those sections - just to see what he might say next. Perhaps that suspicion is unkind, but it exists nonetheless.

If you are a die hard fan of Art Garfunkel, this book may yet have something for you. It may give you the feeling of having picked up the discarded junior high math notebook of someone who scribbled a lot of non-math related thoughts in the margin. Anyone else, I suggest you let Still Water remain undisturbed.

[KOMET · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Still Water" is a collection of poems in prose embodying the themes of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire that is set amid a series of short interviews Art Garfunkel gave in the 1980s about his career, life, and approach to music and living. I read it in little more than an hour.

The value of "Still Water" is that it gave me a more rounded view of Art Garfunkel as a world famous singer, writer, actor, and human being. As someone who has been a diarist since adolescence, I was intrigued to view Garfunkel from different perspectives as he travelled through France, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, the U.S.A., Tahiti, a music studio in Montserrat (British West Indies), on transoceanic voyages by freighter, and in the Soviet Union pre-Gorbachev, sharing his musings with the reader. One of which in particular made a very deep impression on me:

'Writing is often a first line and a sense
of where it's going; something you've
thought about all your life that finally
crystallized for you."

Read "Still Water" if you're in need of a quiet moment for self-reflection.

[Caitlin Fisher · Rating 2 out of 5]

goofiest read of the year alert! Most of these poems are on the not-so-good side, but the interviews with art Garfunkel throughout were great. Had no idea that Garfunkel walked across the country Forrest Gump style, and that’s insane. Also made me a Sifunkel truther.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an interesting read, and while there were some lines of the poetry that I enjoyed in their imagery, it is not a book I would necessarily re-read or recommend. I still appreciated the read and especially the interview portions throughout.

[B Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

cover to cover😋

[Caponato · Rating 1 out of 5]

El cantante de Simon & Garfunkel se atreve con un libro de "poemas en prosa", cuyo capitulado se basa en los famosos cuatro elementos de Empédocles (agua, fuego, tierra y aire), sin que uno pueda encontrar la razón de semejante clasificación. Lo mejor de este libro absolutamente prescindible, es que bastante breve.

[Rachel McShane · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a big Simon and Garfunkel fan, I was immediately intrigued when I heard about Art's book Still Waters. I ordered it from Amazon and read it through in just a few days. It was interesting, but it definitely has it's pros and cons, depending on how you approach it.
If you're a little but like me, you might approach it as a big Simon and Garfunkel lover. If so, you'll probably genuinely enjoy this book. It was a good read coming from that point of view. I knew a lot of facts about Art's life, so it was intriguing to feels his personal emotions and feeling through his autobiographical prose and poems.
BUT if you're a little bit like me, and approach it as an avid reader of poetry, you might NOT enjoy this book. Although each poem is apparently overflowing with emotion, the words aren't always as beautiful. The structure is free verse to the point that it just might drive you insane. I enjoy free verse poetry, but was a tiny bit annoyed to find many of his "poems" were simply paragraphs on a page. Also, each poem and prose piece is very specific to his life, so if you don't know anything about him, you might be confused or lost in the meaning behind them.
If you are a lot like me, you're probably a huge Simon and Garfunkel fan AND an avid poetry reader. And if you read it from that point of view, you'll probably find this book fairly interesting and worth the read. It's best to go in expecting a few things.
First of all, although it's classified as poetry, it's mostly prose, and the few poems it does have are absolutely structure-less.
Secondly, the pieces in Still Waters are so specific that if you know nothing about Art Garfunkel's life, it will simply be random words on paper.
But finally, you must realize that although he's no Dickinson, Whitman, Frost, or Angelou, Art Garfunkel does have a way with words and a uses it to beautifully spill his heart out on paper.