Raymond Carver was an American short-story writer and poet. Carver began his career by writing poems and found the experience of writing short stories to be similar.
His short stories often featured people that are "struggling for a living', and he wrote of them 'in stories whose words and images are assembled with care and economy.' Payne, T., 1997).
His wife wrote after his death that it seemed 'important to finally say that Ray did not regard his poetry as simply a hobby or a pastime he turned to when he wanted a rest from fiction. Poetry was a spiritual necessity.'
Gallagher, Tess. A new path to the waterfall: poems. Robert Carver, The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989, p. xxix.
Payne, Tom. "Raymond Carver." A-Z of Great Writers, Carlton Books, 1997, p. 71.
From the introduction to ... Where I'm calling from
Breathing evenly and steadily once more,
we'll collect ourselves, writers and
readers alike, get up, "created of warm
blood and nerves", as a Chekhov
character puts it, and go onto the next
thing. Life. Always. Life.