Back in print for the first time this era is David Berman's Actual Air. Released in paperback edition in 1999 by the now-defunct Open City and praised everywhere in the then-ascendant print press industry (including names that still make waves today like The New Yorker and GQ), David Berman's first (and only) book of poetry was and is a journey though shared and unreliable memory. Uncannily inspired, Berman's poems walk you through doors into rooms where where one might hear "I can't remember being born / and no one else can either / even the doctor who I met years later / at a cocktail party" (from "Self-Portrait at 28") or praise "the interval called hangover / a sadness not co-terminous with hopelessness" (from "Cassette Country") and "that moment when you take off your sunglasses / after a long drive and realize it's earlier / and lighter out than you had accounted for" ("The Charm of 5:30").



At that time, Berman was called a modern-day Wallace Stevens and a contemporary of John Ashberry, with his own logic, awareness of pop culture and sensitivity to the details of the post-postmodern world in his poems. Alongside his lyrics to a half-dozen infamous Silver Jews records, Actual Air endeared Berman to lovers of poetry, prose, and music alike. Poet James Tate said it best: "It is a book for everyone." And poet laureate Billy Collins could only add, "This is the voice I've waited so long to hear."



The second edition of Actual Air the hardcover edition is once gain limited to 500 copies, as the original 2003 edition was. Features of the second edition are: new larger dimensions and enlarged typeface, new dustjacket artwork variant, deluxe cloth boards, updated full-color endpapers, dust-jacket featuring a photo of the artist around the time of publication, and of course the poems that inspired all this fuss in the first place.



Fans of Actual Air, get hard again on April 12th - preorder now!