Carver's a soul-mate, or was, anyway. He died in the late '80s, just as I was discovering him. Bought a paperback collection of his stories, essays and poems my first year in college, and now I'm teaching those same works to my own students. That's thrilling enough, but the real thrill comes from reading him all by myself, late at night, with all the house lights up as bright as they'll get. I've paced a thousand marathons reading Carver's poems, steeling myself for the world's slings and arrows. He's been a good companion, and I owe him a round of very hard drinks. Who is he? Check out these sites: the Carver site and the Afterlife site.

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To christen the new poetry section, I'll include the five Carver poems I read to my writing students every semester:

Drinking While Driving

It's August and I have not

read a book in six months

except something called The Retreat From Moscow

by Caulaincourt.

Nevertheless, I am happy

riding in a car with my brother

and drinking from a pint of Old Crow.

We do not have any place in mind to go,

we are just driving.

If I closed my eyes for a minute

I would be lost, yet

I could gladly lie down and sleep forever

beside this road.

My brother nudges me.

Any minute now, something will happen.

Morning, Thinking of Empire

We press our lips to the enameled rim of the cups

and know this grease that floats

over the coffee will one day stop our hearts.

Eyes and fingers drop onto silverware

that is not silverware. Outside the window, waves

beat against the chipped walls of the old city.

Your hands rise from the rough tablecloth

as if to prophesy. Your lips tremble ...

I want to say to hell with the future.

Our future lies deep in the afternoon.

It is a narrow street with a cart and driver,

a driver who looks at us and hesitates,

then shakes his head. Meanwhile,

I coolly crack the egg of a fine Leghorn chicken.

Your eyes film. You turn from me and look across

the rooftops at the sea. Even the flies are still.

I crack the other egg.

Surely we have diminished one another.

Balzac

I think of Balzac in his nightcap after

thirty hours at his writing desk,

mist rising from his face,

the gown clinging

to his hairy thighs as

he scratches himself, lingers

at the open window.

Outside, on the boulevards,

the plump white hands of the creditors

stroke moustaches and cravats,

young ladies dream of Chateaubriand

and promenade with the young men, while

empty carriages rattle by, smelling

of axle-grease and leather.

Like a huge draught horse, Balzac

yawns, snorts, lumbers

to the watercloset

and, flinging open his gown,

trains a great stream of piss into the

early nineteenth century

chamberpot. The lace curtain catches

the breeze. Wait! One last scene

before sleep. His brain sizzles as

he goes back to his desk – the pen,

the pot of ink, the strewn pages.

The Other Life

Now for the other life. The one without mistakes. — Lou Lipsitz

My wife is in the other half of this mobile home

making a case against me.

I can hear her pen scratch, scratch.

Now and then she stops to weep,

then – scratch, scratch.

The frost is going out of the ground.

The man who owns this unit tells me,

Don't leave your car here.

My wife goes on writing and weeping,

weeping and writing in our new kitchen.

Torture

You are falling in love again. This time

it is a South American general's daughter.

You want to be stretched on the rack again.

You want to hear awful things said to you

and to admit these things are true.

You want to have unspeakable acts

committed against your person, things

nice people don't talk about in classrooms.

You want to tell everything you know

on Simon Bolivar, on Jorge Luis Borges,

on yourself most of all.

You want to implicate everyone in this!

Even when it's four o'clock in the morning

and the lights are burning still –

those lights that have been burning night and day

in your eyes and brain for two weeks –

and you are dying for a smoke and a lemonade,

but she won't turn off the lights that woman

with the green eyes and the little ways about her,

even then you want to be her gaucho.

Dance with me, you imagine hearing her say

as you reach for the empty beaker of water.

Dance with me, she says again and no mistake.

She picks this minute to ask you, hombre,

to get up and dance with her in the nude.

No, you don't have the strength of a fallen leaf,

not the strength of a little reed basket

battered by waves on Lake Titicaca.

But you bound out of bed

just the same, amigo, you dance

across wide open spaces.