Short Synopsis
This prodigiously rich collection suggests that Raymond Carver was not only America's finest writer of short fiction, but also one of its most large-hearted and affecting poets. Like Carver's stories, the more than 300 poems in All of Us are marked by a keen attention to the physical world; an uncanny ability to compress vast feeling into discreet moments; a voice of conversational intimacy, and an unstinting sympathy.

Full Synopsis
This prodigiously rich collection suggests that Raymond Carver was not only America's finest writer of short fiction, but also one of its most large-hearted and affecting poets. Like Carver's stories, the more than 300 poems in All of Us are marked by a keen attention to the physical world; an uncanny ability to compress vast feeling into discreet moments; a voice of conversational intimacy, and an unstinting sympathy.

This complete edition brings together all the poems of Carver’s five previous books, from Fires to the posthumously published No Heroics, Please. It also contains a moving introduction by Carver’s widow, the poet Tess Gallagher.

"These are direct and lucid works . . . Carver’s poems are dark and funny and tell tales of domestic discord, mad adventures, and sweet intimacies." ---Booklist Starred Review

"Carver's poems piercingly observe characters incarcerated by time and circumstance, but whose dreary lives are occasionally ignited by moments of startling clarity." ---Publishers Weekly

"Carver's poems, with their gritty grace, express the continual astonishment of a man who had rescued himself from alcoholic near-death and penury to achieve acclaim and something like wisdom." ---Library Journal

"Carver's plain-spoken diction lends immediacy to his characters' downward spins and sporadic redemptions." ---New York Times

Booklist Review