NationMaster - Encyclopedia: John Berryman

John Allyn Berryman (originally John Allyn Smith) (October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and often considered one of the founders of the Confessional school of poetry. He was the author of The Dream Songs, which are playful, witty, and morbid. Berryman died by suicide in 1972. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... is the 298th day of the year (299th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... is the 7th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The poor poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. ... McAlester is a city located in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... A confessional poet traffics in intimate, and perhaps derogatory, information about him or herself, in poems about illness, sexuality, despondence and the like. ... For other uses, see Suicide (disambiguation). ...

Of his youthful self he said, 'I didn't want to be like Yeats; I wanted to be Yeats.' A 1907 engraving of Yeats. ...

Published works

Berryman graduated from Columbia University in 1936. His first book was Poems, published in 1942 during the Second World War, and his second was The Dispossessed, which appeared six years later. His first major work was Homage to Mistress Bradstreet in 1956. However, it was the collection of Dream Songs that gathered him the most admiration. The first volume, entitled 77 Dream Songs, was published in 1964 and won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. The second volume of Dream Songs, entitled His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, appeared in 1968. The two volumes of Dream Songs were published together as The Dream Songs in 1969. By that time Berryman, though not a "popular" poet, was well established as an important force in the literary world of poetry, and he was widely read among his contemporaries. Alma Mater Columbia University is a private research university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. ... Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition. ... Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ...

The poems that form Dream Songs involve a character who is by turns the narrator and the person addressed by a narrator. Because readers assumed that these voices were the poet speaking directly of himself, Berryman's poetry was considered part of the Confessional poetry movement. Berryman, however, scorned the idea that he was a Confessional poet. A confessional poet traffics in intimate, and perhaps derogatory, information about him or herself, in poems about illness, sexuality, despondence and the like. ...

Writers' Workshop

While Berryman was on the faculty of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, W. D. Snodgrass, the original confessional poet, was one of the members of his class. "I have been very fortunate twice in my career as a student of poetry," William Dickey wrote in Ed Dinger's Seems Like Old Times, "first to have been at Reed College as an undergraduate with Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch, second to have been in John Berryman's extraordinary and intense poetry workshop with W. D. Snodgrass, Donald Justice, Philip Levine, Paul Petrie, Robert Dana, Constance Urdang, Jane Cooper, Donald Finkel, Henri Coulette—the list continues beyond the capacity of my memory, but it was a course I approached with rapture and fear, owing in part to Berryman's sometimes jagged abruptness, as when, having warned me beforehand that he was going to exhibit the profound mortality of one of my works, he held it out at arm's length in the class, looked at it with loathing, and said, 'Now, what are we to say about this ridiculous poem?'". The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa is a prestigious college and graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. ... W. D. Snodgrass is an USA American poet and 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner. ... Reed College is a private, independent liberal arts college located in Portland, Oregon. ... Young Gary Snyder, on one of his early book covers Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet (originally, often associated with the Beat Generation), essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. ... Philip Whalen (October 20, 1923 â€“ June 26, 2002) was a poet and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat generation. ... Lewis Barrett Welch, Jr. ... Donald Justice (born in Miami, Florida, August 12, 1925 - died in Iowa City, Iowa, August 6, 2004) was an American poet and teacher of writing. ... Philip Levine, an American poet, was born in 1928 in Detroit, Michigan. ... Robert Dana is an award-winning American poet and the poet laureate for the State of Iowa. ... Henri Coulette (1927 - 1988) was an American poet. ...

"I remember a day in the old tin barracks that served as our classroom down by the river, when John Berryman scribbled some lines of mine on the blackboard," Robert Dana added. "'Dana!' he shouted across two rows of chairs, 'Do you know what that is?' He rapidly marked the scansion. 'Metrical chaos! that's what that is! Metrical chaos!'" But chaos was a large and natural part of Berryman's own life, including his poetry:

"It was that kind of blow-torch approach that cut Berryman's class, in two weeks, from about 40 to thirteen." Dana continued. "I like to think of us now as 'The Lucky Thirteen,' but we were crazy too. Crazy with the kind of toughness it took to hang in there against John's special mix of crankiness, brilliance, and cruelty. And we were brash in our own ways.

"Phil Levine punched Berryman in the eye one night, breaking a pair of glasses and establishing a life-long friendship." These kinds of personal relationships were always of great importance to Berryman. It is a question whether he influenced his students more than they influenced him.

On the other hand, the UK poet and contemporary of W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, did not believe that this sort of hot-house atmosphere was necessarily good for poets. Spender has written, "The bad—or perhaps I should say the tragic—result of campus patronage [in the U. S.] is the depressing effect it sometimes has on major talents. I think that the tragic and near-suicidal deaths of Randall Jarrell, Theodore Roethke and John Berryman are not unconnected with their being in positions where, although they were admired, they were very isolated." Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 â€“ 29 September 1973) (IPA: ; first syllable of Auden rhymes with law), who signed his works W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. ... Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE, (February 28, 1909, London â€“ July 16, 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work. ... Photograph of Jarrell in 1956 Randall Jarrell (May 6, 1914 â€“ October 15, 1965), was a United States author, writer and poet. ... Theodore Huebner Roethke (; RET-key) (May 25, 1908 â€“ August 1, 1963) was a United States poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm and natural imagery. ...

Suicide

Berryman's life was dominated by suicide. In 1926, when the poet was twelve, his father, John Smith, a banker in Florida, shot himself. After his father's death, the poet's mother remarried, and thus he came to his new surname of Berryman. The vision of his father's suicide haunted John Berryman's poetic imagination, and the subject is addressed indirectly in the Dream Songs several times and directly once, where the poet wishes that he could kill the corpse of his father. Berryman was an alcoholic, and friends reported that even as a student at Columbia University he was two different people when drinking and sober. As a mature poet, Berryman's alcoholism and depression interfered with his ability to give readings, to speak in public, and to work appropriately. In 1972, Berryman's depression led him to follow the example of his father and to kill himself by jumping from the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He missed the water and died, not by drowning or trauma, but by smothering, according to the Minneapolis Star, which reported his death. Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Official language(s) English Capital Tallahassee Largest city Jacksonville Largest metro area Miami metropolitan area Area Ranked 22nd - Total 65,795[1] sq mi (170,304[1] kmÂ²) - Width 361 miles (582 km) - Length 447 miles (721 km) - % water 17. ... Alcoholism is the consumption of, or preoccupation with, alcoholic beverages to the extent that this behavior interferes with the drinkers normal personal, family, social, or work life, and may lead to physical or mental harm. ... Alma Mater Columbia University is a private research university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. ... Clinical depression (also called major depressive disorder, or unipolar depression when compared to bipolar disorder) is a state of intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive to an individuals social functioning and/or activities of daily living. ... The Washington Avenue Bridge crosses the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota and connects the East Bank and West Bank portions of the University of Minnesotas main campus. ... â€œMinneapolisâ€ redirects here. ...

Poetry

The Dream Songs are eighteen-line poems in three stanzas. Each individual poem is lyric and organized around an emotion provoked by an everyday event. The tone of the poems is less surreal than associational or intoxicated. The principal character of the song cycle is Henry, who is both the narrator of the poems and referred to by the narrator in the poems. In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. ...

In 1967, in the heart of the restless decade, Berryman published a book of near-juvenilia, Berryman's Sonnets, of which the author wrote in a verse preface, speaking of himself in the third person, "He made, a thousand years ago, a-many songs / for an Excellent Lady, wif whom he was in wuv, / shall he now publish them?" Perhaps he should. "So free them to the winds that play, / let boys & girls with these old songs have holiday / if they feel like it (ix)."

Berryman's archness notwithstanding, the collection was interesting because it shows that his distinctive poetic diction had roots well back in his creative life. Thus Sonnet 102:

In Berryman's early pieces the neo-Elizabethan imagination and metaphysical wit of Homage to Mistress Bradstreet and his other books, with the posthumous Delusions, Etc., which was published in 1972, are linked with the passion of youth, causing some readers to wish that the later Berryman had retained some of the charm and commitment to blood found in the Sonnets, instead of going far down the road toward arch confession and idiosyncratic style, as he did in his later work.

The poet and critic Robert Phillips wrote that the poet's second collection "is filled with accounts of friends' deaths and suicides, events which took their toll on Berryman's psyche: Randall Jarrell, Theodore Roethke, Sylvia Plath, R. P. Blackmur, Yvor Winters, William Carlos Williams, and above all, Delmore Schwartz, to whose memory Berryman dedicated the book and penned Dream Songs 146-157 and also number 344. These personal losses were experienced during a time of great public loss as well: John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner. Yet none of these personal or public deaths figure so importantly in the volume as the suicide of Berryman's father which is, in one sense, the sole subject of the latter collection (93)." Berryman's own suicide was not the first among the Confessional poets. Robert Phillips (born in New York July 26, 1953) is an American classical guitarist. ... Photograph of Jarrell in 1956 Randall Jarrell (May 6, 1914 â€“ October 15, 1965), was a United States author, writer and poet. ... Theodore Huebner Roethke (; RET-key) (May 25, 1908 â€“ August 1, 1963) was a United States poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm and natural imagery. ... Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 â€“ February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. ... Richard Palmer Blackmur (January 21, 1904 â€“ February 2, 1965) was an American literary critic and poet. ... Arthur Yvor Winters (October 17, 1900 - January 26, 1968) was an American literary critic and poet, noted as a critic of poetry and embroiled in controversy. ... William Carlos Williams Dr. William Carlos Williams (sometimes known as WCW) (September 17, 1883 â€“ March 4, 1963), was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. ... Delmore Schwartz Delmore Schwartz (December 8, 1913 - July 11, 1966) was an American poet from Brooklyn, New York, called the greatest of American writers, whose work has a place in the hearts and minds of the everyman, adrift in the anguish of modernity (J. Kredell: A Smudge on the American... There have been several John Kennedys: John F. Kennedy, American president John F. Kennedy, Jr. ... Robert Kennedy Robert Francis Bobby Kennedy, also called RFK (November 20, 1925–June 6, 1968) was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, and was appointed by his brother as Attorney General for his administration. ... â€œMartin Luther Kingâ€ redirects here. ... Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 â€“ July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. ... William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 â€“ July 6, 1962) was an American novelist and poet whose works feature his native state of Mississippi. ...

As he developed the Dream Songs, Berryman went in the opposite direction from that which Lowell took; he got more elaborate and obscure. "Berryman is a poet so preoccupied with poetic effects as to be totally in their thrall," James Dickey wrote. "His inversions, his personal and often irritatingly cute colloquialisms and deliberate misspellings, his odd references, his basing of lines and whole poems on private allusions, create what must surely be the densest verbal thickets since Empson's." William Empson Sir William Empson (27 September 1906 â€“ 15 April 1984) was an English literary critic and poet, reckoned by some to be the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson and William Hazlitt and fitting heir to their mode of witty, fiercely heterodox and imaginatively rich criticism. ...

In his 366th "Dream Song" Berryman himself wrote, "These Songs are not meant to be understood, you understand. / They are only meant to terrify & comfort." "And understood many have not been," Phillips wrote. "Packed with private jokes, topical and literary allusions (Berryman's reading and personal library are legendary), they boggle many minds. When the first 77 Dream Songs...were published, Robert Lowell admitted, 'At first the brain aches and freezes at so much darkness, disorder and oddness. After a while, the repeated situations and their racy jabber become more and more enjoyable, although even now I wouldn't trust myself to paraphrase accurately at least half the sections.'" Phillips continued, "The situation was considerably beclouded when four years later, Berryman dumped on the world a truckful of 308 additional Dream Songs, under the title His Toy, His Dream, His Rest." Robert Lowell (March 1, 1917â€“September 12, 1977), born Robert Traill Spence Lowell, IV, was a highly regarded mid-twentieth-century American poet. ...

As his career progressed, unlike Robert Lowell and most other members of the school except for Snodgrass, Berryman remained a formalist, inventing for his work not only a poetic diction and a style of writing that is clearly recognizable as his own and no one else's, but a specific poem-form as well in The Dream Songs. The form consisted of three sestet stanzas rhyming abaaba. The rhymes changed in subsequent stanzas; the third and sixth lines in each stanza were shorter than the rest. The term formalism describes an emphasis on form over content or meaning in the arts, literature, or philosophy. ...

This is only an approximate description of the form, however, as Berryman left himself considerable leeway. Another feature of the poems had to do with their narrative voices. These were not, strictly speaking, egopoems, for they were often dialogues among characters including "Henry," an unnamed character who refers to Henry as "Mr. Bones," and an "I," which may be read as the voice of the poet himself.

There was, then, a distinct dramatic element in the Dream Songs, as in no. 80, "Op. posth. no. 3," from His toy, His Dream, His Rest:

This is one of the few poems in The Dream Songs that has a title, and from it the reader can infer a subject: the speaker's death. Since the speaker of the poem is dead and the poem itself is not only published, but composed, after the speaker's demise, then one may also infer that it is a dramatic poem, the speaker imagining himself both as dead and alive and writing what amounts to an elegy for himself. The "it" of the first three lines is the speaker's corpse, which the "I" misses. "It" was happy at times in its life. The "I" must leave "it" behind -- an odd twist, since usually it is the person dying who leaves the living "behind." The "I" will probably be assumed by most readers to be the soul of the "it."

Where is the "I" going, then? He has followed "the great Uh" which "climbed above" the "I," upon the "north face"—this is mountaineering talk. "Uh" has climbed beyond "I." Does "Uh" love "I"? "over, & flout." What is over? Who is flouting whom?

"The house-guest" is obscure until one recalls that the coffin has in English literary traditions been called "the narrow house." The "it" is "slimmed down" to a skeleton "with one eye open" and its "breast out."

The third stanza explains that before "it" was buried "it" began to be "slimmed down" before death as a result of a "by-blow," another seemingly obscure word which is cleared up by reference to the O.E.D.: The third definition of "by-blow" is "One who comes into the world by a side-stroke; an illegitimate child, a bastard." The rest of the line thus clears up: "adoptive-up; was white." The next line is a bit cloudier, "A daughter of a friend. His soul is a sight." But we can be a bit easier in our assumption that "I" is the soul of "it."

Who is the speaker? In a preface to The Dream Songs, Berryman wrote, "The poem ... is essentially about an imaginary character (not the poet, not me) named Henry, in early middle age ... who ... talks about himself sometimes in the first person, sometimes in the third, sometimes even in the second; he has a friend, never named, who address him as Mr Bones and variants thereof." It becomes obvious through his description that "Henry" and "Mr Bones" are one and the same, and that Henry is the primary speaker. A change in speaker, to the unnamed friend who addresses Henry as Mr Bones (or back to Henry), is signified by a dash, as in the last 2 lines of his fourth "Dream Song:" "There ought to be a law against Henry / -Mr. Bones: there is."

It has been presumed that both "Henry" and "Mr Bones" are aspects of Berryman himself; if Mr. Bones is not, then perhaps—some critics say, taking their cue from the word "bones" -- he is Death who stalks the poet, although Berryman's statements refute that Mr Bones is actually a separate character. One can maintain with good circumstantial backing, however, that Henry is at least "Mr. Interloc'tor," the master of ceremonies of the traditional minstrel show that is Berryman's life, and that the character who refers to Henry as Mr Bones is the blackface end-man who is the thorn in the side of the emcee.

Henry's reply to the unnamed character in this case is cryptic. Many if not most of Berryman's Dream Songs will probably remain as unsatisfactorily explicated and obscure as many of Ezra Pound's Cantos. Ezra Pound in 1913. ... Ezra Pound in 1913 The Cantos by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto. ...

Berryman said that "Henry" was his dentist. On other occasions, he suggested that the choice of name originated from a conversation with his wife, where they agreed on the worst male and female names ever, "Henry" and "Mabel," and grew to affectionately call each other these names. Berryman insisted, however, that his Dream Songs are NOT autobiographical and that he is NOT Henry, although he concedes he is very similar to his character in many ways.

In popular culture

Okkervil River's song, "John Allyn Smith Sails" is about John Berryman. This article is about the musical band. ...

The Hold Steady's song "Stuck Between Stations" from the album Boys and Girls in America relates a loose rendition of Berryman's death, describing the isolation he felt, despite his critical acclaim, and depicting him walking with the Devil on the Washington Avenue Bridge, ending with "We all come down and drown in the Mississippi River." (The lyricist, Craig Finn, is a native of Minneapolis.) The lyric is: The Hold Steady are a Brooklyn-based rock band. ... Boys and Girls in America is an album by The Hold Steady released on October 3, 2006 by Vagrant Records. ... The Washington Avenue Bridge crosses the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota and connects the East Bank and West Bank portions of the University of Minnesotas main campus. ...

"Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning?", a song off Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's album "Some Loud Thunder" references John Berryman. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! (often abbreviated CYHSY) is an American indie rock group founded in New London, Connecticut based in Brooklyn, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania whose members include Alec Ounsworth, Lee Sargent, Robbie Guertin, Tyler Sargent, and Sean Greenhalgh. ... Some Loud Thunder is the second album by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, an indie rock band from Brooklyn. ...

Bibliography

// T.S. Eliot - Little Gidding Frost Medal: Edgar Lee Masters Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: William Rose Benet, The Dust Which Is God October 23 - Douglas Dunn, poet date unknown - Gladys Cardiff, poet date unknown - Konstantin Balmont, poet Poetry List of poetry awards Categories: | | ... // Sometime this year, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase Beat Generation to describe his friends and as a general term describing the underground, anti-conformist youth gathering in New York at that time to the novelist John Clellon Holmes September â€” The body of William Butler Yeats who died in Menton, France... // City Lights Books publishes Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsburg Aniara - Harry Martinson National Book Award for Poetry: W.H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Elizabeth Bishop: Poems - North & South Queens Gold Medal for Poetry: Edmund Blunden date unknown - Amy Gerstler, poet June 22... // Sir John Betjeman, Ring of Bells Leonard Cohen, Flowers for Hitler, including The Only Tourist in Havana Turns his Thoughts Homeward Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings. ... // Cecil Day-Lewis is selected as the new Poet Laureate of the UK. Margaret Atwood, The Circle Game Ted Hughes, Wodwo Wole Soyinka, Idanre, and Other Poems See 1967 Governor Generals Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards. ... // FIELD Magazine founded Charles Bukowski quits his day job as a Post Office clerk in Los Angeles to embark on a writing career after being promised a $100 stipend from Black Sparrow Press. ... // FIELD Magazine founded Charles Bukowski quits his day job as a Post Office clerk in Los Angeles to embark on a writing career after being promised a $100 stipend from Black Sparrow Press. ... // Charles Causley, Figgie Hobbin See 1970 Governor Generals Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards. ... // John Betjeman becomes Poet Laureate A.R. Ammons: Briefings: Poems Small and Easy Collected Poems: 1951-1971, winner of the National Book Award in 1973 John Ashbery, Three Poems Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, and Tom Clark, Back In Boston Again John Berryman, (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Elizabeth Bishop and...

References

External links

Notes

Categories: Cleanup from July 2007 | All pages needing cleanup | Articles needing additional references from July 2007 | 1914 births | 1972 deaths | American poets | Columbia University alumni | Oklahoma writers | Suicides by jumping from a height | Writers who committed suicide | Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners | Suicides in the United States Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 116th day of the year (117th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 298th day of the year (299th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... McAlester is a city located in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. ... is the 7th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... â€œMinneapolisâ€ redirects here. ...

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