Reviews

Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts by Lawrence Raab

simplyb's review

4.0

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.