Yes, I have
Rain. I am a big Paterson fan, as I said recently elsewhere in this forum prompting John W to remind me that
he was just as sexy and had more hair.
I think a problem with getting famous and receiving awards (if such can be called "problem") is that the reader will often expect every poem to be a little masterpiece, one that will reach out from the page and touch him/her deeply. No book of poetry that can do that with every poem, alas.
I have
Rain beside my sofa and reach for it now and then to read or re-read a poem at a time. My favorite (I think, at least so far) is
Sky Song (after Robert Desnos): it is one of those poems that successfully seduce women.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Desnos
I think D.P. is a woman's poet. Ruth Padel says in one of her crit books that every time she used one of his poems in her column, she got lots of fan mail from women/girls asking for more by him. This was a pretty long time ago--he was younger then and writing the kind of poetry young men write and that young women fall for. I suspect he had more hair then too (not that I see any correlation between hair-lush poets and sexy poetry).
That said, many of the poems in
Rain are acknowledgements to the poets that D.P. admires. I like that idea--standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before, esteeming one's peers.
Crossposted with M.C.