John Berryman
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John Allyn McAlpin Berryman (born John Allyn Smith, Jr.; October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in the "
confessional A confessional is a box, cabinet, booth, or stall where the priest from some Christian denominations sits to hear the confessions of a penitent's sins. It is the traditional venue for the sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church and the Luther ...
" school of poetry. His '' 77 Dream Songs'' (1964) won the 1965
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award came five years after the first Pulitzers were awarded in other categories; Joseph Pulitzer's will had not ment ...
.


Life and career

John Berryman was born on October 25, 1914, in McAlester,
Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
, where he was raised until the age of ten, when his father, John Smith, a banker, and his mother, Martha (also known as Peggy), a schoolteacher, moved to Florida. In 1926, in
Clearwater, Florida Clearwater is a city and the county seat of Pinellas County, Florida, United States, west of Tampa, Florida, Tampa and north of St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg. To the west of Clearwater lies the Gulf of Mexico and to the southeast lies T ...
, when Berryman was 11 years old, his father shot and killed himself. Smith was jobless at the time, and he and Martha were filing for divorce. Berryman was haunted by his father's death for the rest of his life and wrote about his struggle to come to terms with it in much of his poetry. In "Dream Song #143", he wrote, "That mad drive o commit suicidewiped out my childhood. I put him down/while all the same on forty years I love him/stashed in Oklahoma/besides his brother Will". In "Dream Song #145", he also wrote of his father: Similarly, in Dream Song #384, Berryman wrote: After his father's death at the rear entrance to Kipling Arms, where the Smiths rented an apartment, the poet's mother, within months, married John Angus McAlpin Berryman in New York City. The poet was renamed John Allyn McAlpin Berryman. Berryman's mother also changed her first name from Peggy to Jill.Mariani, Paul. ''Dream Songs: The Life of John Berryman''. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1990. Although his stepfather later divorced his mother, Berryman and his stepfather stayed on good terms.Ellman, Richard and Robert O'Clair. ''The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry''. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1973. With both his mother and stepfather working, his mother decided to send him to the South Kent School, a private boarding school in Connecticut. Berryman then attended Columbia College, where he was president of the Philolexian Society, joined the Boar's Head Society, edited '' The Columbia Review'', and studied under the literary scholar and poet
Mark Van Doren Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thin ...
. Berryman later credited Van Doren with sparking his interest in writing poetry seriously. For two years, Berryman also studied overseas at
Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the Unive ...
, on a Kellett Fellowship from Columbia. He graduated in 1936. Berryman's early work formed part of a volume titled ''Five Young American Poets'', published by New Directions in 1940. One of the other young poets included in the book was Randall Jarrell. Berryman published some of this early verse in his first book, ''Poems'', in 1942. His first mature collection of poems, ''The Dispossessed'', appeared six years later, published by William Sloane Associates. The book received largely negative reviews from poets like Jarrell, who wrote, in ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'', that Berryman was "a complicated, nervous, and intelligent oet whose work was too derivative of
W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...
. Berryman later concurred with this assessment of his early work, saying, "I didn't want to be ''like'' Yeats; I wanted to ''be'' Yeats." In October 1942, Berryman married Eileen Mulligan (later Simpson) in a ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral, with Van Doren as his best man. The couple moved to Beacon Hill, and Berryman lectured at Harvard. The marriage ended in 1953 (the divorce was formalized in 1956), when Simpson finally grew weary of Berryman's affairs and acting as "net-holder" during his self-destructive personal crises. Simpson memorialized her time with Berryman and his circle in her 1982 book ''Poets in Their Youth''. In 1947, Berryman started an affair with a married woman named Chris Haynes, documented in a long sonnet sequence that he refrained from publishing in part because that would have revealed the affair to his wife. He eventually published the work, ''Berryman's Sonnets'', in 1967. It includes over one hundred sonnets. In 1950, Berryman published a biography of the fiction writer and poet
Stephen Crane Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism an ...
, whom he greatly admired. The book was followed by his next significant poem, ''Homage to Mistress Bradstreet'' (1956), a conversation with the 17th-century poet
Anne Bradstreet Anne Bradstreet (née Dudley; March 8, 1612 – September 16, 1672) was among the most prominent of early English poets of North America and the first writer in England's North American colonies to be published. She is the first Puritan ...
which featured illustrations by the artist Ben Shahn and was Berryman's first poem to receive "national attention" and a positive response from critics.
Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer, literary critic, and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing ...
wrote that it was "the most distinguished long poem by an American since T. S. Eliot's ''
The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important English-language poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United ...
''." When ''Homage to Mistress Bradstreet and Other Poems'' was published in 1959, the poet Conrad Aiken praised the book's shorter poems, which he found superior to "Homage to Mistress Bradstreet". Despite his third book of verse's relative success, Berryman's great poetic breakthrough occurred with '' 77 Dream Songs'' (1964). It won the 1965
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
for poetry and solidified Berryman's standing as one of the most important poets of the post-World War II generation that included
Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...
, Elizabeth Bishop, and Delmore Schwartz. Soon thereafter, the press began to give Berryman a great deal of attention, as did arts organizations and even the White House, which sent him an invitation to dine with President
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
(though Berryman declined because he was in
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
at the time). Berryman was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
in 1967, and that same year ''
Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...
'' magazine ran a feature story on him. Also that year the newly created
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
awarded him a $10,000 grant (when a Minneapolis reporter asked him about the award, he said that he had never heard of NEA before receiving it). Berryman also continued to work on the "dream song" poems at a feverish pace and in 1968 published a second, significantly longer, volume, '' His Toy, His Dream, His Rest'', which won the National Book Award for Poetry and the Bollingen Prize."National Book Awards – 1969"
National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established with the goal "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: ...
. Retrieved 2012-02-25.
(With acceptance speech by Berryman and essay by Kiki Petrosino from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
The next year Berryman republished ''77 Dreams Songs'' and ''His Toy, His Dream, His Rest'' as one book, '' The Dream Songs'', in which the character Henry serves as Berryman's alter ego. In ''Love & Fame'' (1970), he dropped the mask of Henry to write more plainly about his life. Responses to the poems from critics and most of Berryman's peers ranged from tepid to hostile; the collection is now generally "considered a minor work".Galassi, Jonathan. "John Berryman: Sorrows and Passions of His Majesty the Ego." Poetry Nation, No. 2, 1974. 117–124. Henry reappeared in a couple of poems published in ''Delusions Etc.'' (1972), Berryman's last collection, which focused on his religious concerns and spiritual rebirth. The book was published posthumously and, like ''Love & Fame'', is considered a minor work. Berryman taught or lectured at a number of universities, including the
University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...
(at the Writer's Workshop),
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
,
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
, the
University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati, informally Cincy) is a public university, public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1819 and had an enrollment of over 53,000 students in 2024, making it the ...
, and the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...
, where he spent most of his career, except for his sabbatical year in 1962–63, when he taught at
Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...
. Some of his illustrious students included W. D. Snodgrass, William Dickey, Donald Justice, Philip Levine, Robert Dana, Jane Cooper, Donald Finkel, and Henri Coulette. In a 2009 interview, Levine said Berryman took his class extremely seriously and that "he was entrancing ... magnetic and inspiring and very hard on is students'work ... ndhe was lsothe best teacher that I ever had". Berryman was fired from the University of Iowa after a fight with his landlord led to his being arrested, jailed overnight, and fined for disorderly conduct and public intoxication. His friend the poet
Allen Tate John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979), known professionally as Allen Tate, was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and poet laureate from 1943 to 1944. Among his best known works are the poems " Ode to th ...
helped him get the job at the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...
.Healy, Steve (September 9, 1998)
"John Berryman: The Dreamer Awakes."
''
City Pages ''City Pages'' was an alternative newspaper serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. It featured news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews and music criticism, available free every Wednesday. It ceased publication in 2020 due to a ...
''.


Personal life and death

Berryman was married three times. According to the editors of ''The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry'', he lived turbulently. During one of the many times he was hospitalized for alcohol abuse, in 1970, he experienced what he termed "a sort of religious conversion". According to his biographer Paul Mariani, Berryman experienced "a sudden and radical shift from a belief in a transcendent God ... to a belief in a God who cared for the individual fates of human beings and who even interceded for them." Nevertheless, Berryman continued to abuse alcohol and struggle with depression, as he had throughout much of his life, and on the morning of January 7, 1972, he killed himself by jumping from the Washington Avenue Bridge in
Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
onto the west bank of the
Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...
.


Poetry

Berryman's poetry, which often revolves around the sordid details of his personal problems, is closely associated with the "confessional" poetry movement. In this sense, his poetry had much in common with the poetry of his friend
Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...
. The editors of ''The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry'' note that "the influence of Yeats, Auden, Hopkins, Crane, and Pound on him was strong, and Berryman's own voiceby turns nerve-racked and sportivetook some time to be heard." Berryman's first major work, in which he began to develop his own style, was ''Homage to Mistress Bradstreet''. In the long, title poem, which first appeared in '' Partisan Review'' in 1953, Berryman addresses the 17th-century American poet
Anne Bradstreet Anne Bradstreet (née Dudley; March 8, 1612 – September 16, 1672) was among the most prominent of early English poets of North America and the first writer in England's North American colonies to be published. She is the first Puritan ...
, combining her life history with his fantasies about her (and inserting himself into the poem). Joel Athey noted, "This difficult poem, a tribute to the
Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...
poet of
colonial America The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the late 15th century until the unifying of the Thirteen British Colonies and creation of the United States in 1776, during the Re ...
, took Berryman five years to complete and demanded much from the reader when it first appeared with no notes. ''
The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'' hailed it as a path-breaking masterpiece; poet Robert Fitzgerald called it 'the poem of his generation.'" Edward Hirsch observed that "the 57
stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...
s of ''Homage to Mistress Bradstreet'' combine the concentration of an extended lyric with the erudition and amplitude of a historical novel".Hirsch, Edward. "Taking glee in the past"
''The New York Times'' October 8, 1989.
Berryman's major poetic breakthrough came after the first volume of '' The Dream Songs'', ''77 Dream Songs'', in 1964. The dream song form consists of short, 18-line lyric poems in three
stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...
s. They are in free verse, with some stanzas containing irregular rhyme. ''77 Dream Songs'' (and its sequel ''His Toy, His Dream, His Rest'') centers on a character named Henry who bears a striking resemblance to Berryman, but Berryman was careful to make sure his readers realized that Henry was a fictional version of himself (or a literary
alter ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I") means an alternate Self (psychology), self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original Personality psychology, personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other ...
). In an interview, Berryman said, "Henry does resemble me, and I resemble Henry; but on the other hand I am not Henry. You know, I pay income tax; Henry pays no income tax. And bats come over and they stall in my hairand fuck them, I'm not Henry; Henry doesn't have any bats." John Malcolm Brinnin, reviewing ''77 Dream Songs'' in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', wrote that its "excellence calls for celebration".
Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...
wrote in ''
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...
'', "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." In response to the perceived difficulty of the dream songs, in his 366th "Dream Song", Berryman facetiously wrote, "These Songs are not meant to be understood, you understand. / They are only meant to terrify & comfort". In ''His Toy, His Dream, His Rest'', many of the dream songs are elegies for Berryman's recently deceased poet friends, including Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, and Theodore Roethke. The volume contains four times as many poems as the previous one, and covers more subject matter. For instance, in addition to the elegies, Berryman writes about his trip to Ireland, as well as his own burgeoning literary fame. Berryman's last two volumes of poetry, ''Love & Fame'' and ''Delusions, Etc.'', featured free-verse poems that were much more straightforward and less idiosyncratic than ''The Dream Songs''. Before ''Love & Fame'''s publication, Berryman sent his manuscript to several peers for feedback, including the poets
Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the ...
and Richard Wilbur, both of whom were disappointed with the poems, which they considered inferior to those of ''The Dream Songs''. But some of Berryman's old friends and supporters, including Lowell, the novelist
Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...
, and the poet William Meredith, offered high praise for a number of the ''Love & Fame'' poems. ''Love & Fame'' and ''Delusions, Etc.'' were more openly "confessional" than Berryman's earlier verse, and also explored the nature of his spiritual rebirth in poems like "Eleven Addresses to the Lord" (which Lowell thought one of Berryman's best poems and "one of the great poems of the age") and "Certainty Before Lunch". In 1977 John Haffenden published ''Henry's Fate & Other Poems'', a selection of dream songs that Berryman wrote after ''His Toy, His Dream, His Rest'' but did not publish. According to ''
Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine's review, "Posthumous selections of unpublished poetry should be viewed suspiciously. The dead poet may have had good aesthetic reasons for keeping some of his work to himself. Fortunately, ''Henry's Fate'' does not malign the memory of John Berryman". Berryman's ''Collected Poems – 1937–1971'', edited and introduced by Charles Thornbury, was published in 1989. Robert Giroux decided to omit ''The Dream Songs'' from the collection. In his review of the ''Collected Poems'', Edward Hirsch said of this decision, "It is obviously practical to continue to publish the 385 dream songs separately, but reading the ''Collected Poems'' without them is a little like eating a seven-course meal without a main course." Hirsch also wrote that, " 'Collected Poems'' featuresa thorough nine-part introduction and a chronology as well as helpful appendixes that include Berryman's published prefaces, notes and dedications; a section of editor's notes, guidelines and procedures; and an account of the poems in their final stages of composition and publication." In 2004, the
Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published more than 300 volumes by authors ...
published ''John Berryman: Selected Poems'', edited by the poet Kevin Young. In ''
Poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
'' magazine, David Orr wrote:
Young includes all the Greatest Hits rom Berryman's career... but there are also substantial excerpts from Berryman's ''Sonnets'' (the peculiar book that appeared after ''The Dream Songs'', but was written long before) and Berryman's later, overtly religious poetry. Young argues that "if his middle, elegiac period ... is most in need of rediscovery, then these late poems are most in need of redemption." It's a good point. Although portions of Berryman's late work are sloppy and erratic, these poems help clarify the spiritual struggle that motivates and sustains his best writing.
After surveying Berryman's career and accomplishments, the editors of ''The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry'' wrote, "What seems likely to survive of his poetry is its pungent and many-leveled portrait of a complex personality which, for all its eccentricity, stayed close to the center of the intellectual and emotional life of the mid-century and after."


In popular culture

*Berryman's ghost is a character in
Thomas Disch Thomas Michael Disch (February 2, 1940 – July 4, 2008) was an American science fiction writer and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book—previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book"—in 1999. He had two other Hugo nominations and n ...
's novel '' The Businessman: A Tale of Terror'', published in 1984. *
The Hold Steady The Hold Steady is an American rock band formed in Brooklyn, New York, in 2003. The band consists of Craig Finn (vocals, guitar), Tad Kubler (guitar), Galen Polivka (bass), Bobby Drake (drums), Franz Nicolay (keyboards) and Steve Selvidge (g ...
's song "Stuck Between Stations" from the 2006 album ''
Boys and Girls in America ''Boys and Girls in America'' is the third studio album by the Hold Steady, released on October 3, 2006 on Vagrant Records. The album was produced by John Agnello and preceded by the single, "Chips Ahoy!" On August 18, 2006, first single "Chips A ...
'' 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 where he committed suicide. *
Okkervil River Okkervil River is an American rock band led by singer-songwriter Will Sheff. Formed in Austin, Texas, in 1998, the band takes its name from a short story by Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya set on the river Okkervil in Saint Petersburg. They bega ...
's song "John Allyn Smith Sails" from their 2007 album '' The Stage Names'' is about Berryman. *Australian singer/songwriter
Nick Cave Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian musician, writer, and actor who fronts the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Known for his baritone voice, Cave's music is characterised by emotional intensity, a wide variety ...
has cited Berryman's influence on the composition of his 1992 album '' Henry's Dream'', and also expressed his admiration overtly in the song "We Call Upon the Author" from the 2007 album '' Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!'' *Phish bassist
Mike Gordon Michael Eliot Gordon (born June 3, 1965) is an American bass guitarist and vocalist most recognized as a founding member of the band Phish. In addition to bass, Gordon plays banjo, piano, and guitar. He is a filmmaker ('' Rising Low'', '' Outs ...
's side-project band has performed "Dream Song 22 – 'Of 1826'", releasing it on a live album, '' The Egg''. Additionally, on March 30, 2014, their show featured a rendition of "The Poet's Final Instructions". *Berryman's Dream Song 235 is referenced in
Elizabeth Strout Elizabeth Strout (born January 6, 1956) is an American novelist and author. She is widely known for her works in literary fiction and her descriptive characterization. She was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and her experiences in her yout ...
's novel '' Olive Kitteridge'' and its HBO adaption with the quotation, "Save us from shotguns & fathers' suicides." *Berryman's poem "The Curse" is referenced in the prologue of Tracy Letts's play '' August: Osage County'' by the character Beverly, a poet who later commits suicide. * On 14 January 1974 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired ''The Hours of John Berryman'', a 60-minute commentary on Berryman's "Opus Dei" (the 8-poem sequence that opens ''Delusions'') by Canadian scholar and critic George Whalley. John Reeves produced the broadcast. * Irish poet Desmond Egan contemplates Berryman's suicide in "For John Berryman", which appears in his 2008 collection ''September Dandelion''. * The season finales of ''
Succession Succession is the act or process of following in order or sequence. Governance and politics *Order of succession, in politics, the ascension to power by one ruler, official, or monarch after the death, resignation, or removal from office of ...
s four seasons are named after phrases from "Dream Song 29": " Nobody Is Ever Missing", " This Is Not for Tears", " All the Bells Say", and " With Open Eyes".


Bibliography


Poetry

* ''Poems'' (Norfolk, CT: New Directions Press, 1942). * ''The Dispossessed'' (New York: William Sloan Associates, 1948). * ''Homage to Mistress Bradstreet'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1956). * '' 77 Dream Songs'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964). * ''Berryman's Sonnets'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967). * '' His Toy, His Dream His Rest'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968). * '' The Dream Songs'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969). * ''Love & Fame'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970). * ''Delusions, Etc. of John Berryman'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1972). * ''Henry's Fate & Other Poems, 1967–1972'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977). * ''Collected Poems 1937–1971,'' ed. Charles Thornbury (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989). * ''Selected Poems,'' ed. Kevin Young (New York: Library of America, 2004). * ''The Heart Is Strange,'' ed. Daniel Swift (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014).


Prose

* ''Stephen Crane'' (New York: William Sloan Associates, 1950). * ''The Freedom of the Poet'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976). * ''Berryman's
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
,'' ed. John Haffenden (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999). * ''The Selected Letters of John Berryman,'' ed. Philip Coleman and Calista McRae (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 2020). * ''Conversations with John Berryman,'' ed. Eric Hoffman (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2021).


Fiction

* ''Recovery'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973).


References

Citations * Bloom, James D. ''The Stock of Available Reality: R.P. Blackmur and John Berryman''. (Bucknell University Press, 1984) * Dickey, James. ''From Babel to Byzantium: Poets and Poetry Now'' (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1968) * Dinger, Ed. ''Seems Like Old Times'' (Iowa) * Haffenden, John. ''The Life of John Berryman'' (Arc Paperbacks) * Mariani, Paul. ''Dream Song: The Life of John Berryman'' (NY, Morrow, 1990) * Simpson, Eileen. ''The Maze'' (NY, Simon & Schuster, 1975) * Simpson, Eileen. ''Poets in Their Youth'' (NY, 1984)


External links

*
John Berryman profile and works
at the Poetry Foundation
John Berryman profile and selected works
at Academy of American Poets
Profile and works
from Modern American Poetry, University of Illinois *
Review of The Dream Songs


* ttp://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/a_f/berryman/berryman.htm Modern American Poetry Critical essays on Berryman's works *
John Berryman
at
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Authorities – with 50 catalog records
John Berryman Collection
at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Finding aid to William Meredith collection of John Berryman papers and library at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berryman, John 1914 births 1972 suicides 1972 deaths People from McAlester, Oklahoma Poets from Minnesota Poets from Oklahoma Columbia College (New York) alumni University of Minnesota faculty University of Iowa faculty Writers from Oklahoma Poètes maudits Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners Suicides in Minnesota Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences National Book Award winners Suicides by jumping in the United States South Kent School alumni Bollingen Prize recipients Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male writers People from Beacon Hill, Boston Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters