Reviews
Review by: B.H. Fairchild - December 1, 2019
"What a generous and finely crafted book David Havird’s WEATHERING is, moving from recent work, mostly short narratives, to early poems demonstrating the considerable lyric talent with which he began. In between lie elegant personal essays on poets he knew and who influenced him. The essays are insightful and often deeply revealing, and it is wonderful how they illuminate Havird’s own weathering as a poet and as a man from then until now."
Review by: Willard Spiegelman - December 1, 2019
"What a delight David Havird has given us. His nimble combination of poetry and memoir bears all the signs of a life lived through, with, and for poems, poets, and poetry. It moves deliciously backwards from the present to the past. Sandwiched between recent poems and early ones come heartfelt, informative prose reminiscences of his youthful infatuations and meetings with three poets who helped to form him as a writer: James Dickey, Robert Lowell, and Archibald MacLeish. Havird's latest poems show us the wisdom he has gained from books, travel, culture, history, and nature, and they prove--as if proof were necessary--that the literary life remains a noble achievement, one always making and re-making itself."
Review by: David Yezzi - December 1, 2019
"David Havird's poems have the virtues of a fine 'prose style'--lucidity, drive, passion--that (we are reminded in WEATHERING) Lowell greatly admired. Also in this chimeric omnibus, prose rings like poetry, bringing the past lucently to view. This is an indispensable collection, whose tonic chord is memory--a poet's accounting of what's been weathered.