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Narrator
Being a great. What does being a great mean, nowadays especially whenthousands get up on podium and churn out fast clickingdoggerel at the c one after another? When poet laureates areappointed in some sta, 45 to be exact, with not more than a self-publishednove their credit. John Berryman was differ.
The friend is of course end man in, you know, in minstre. And anyway, he and Henry very closely, very closely connecte. They're part of the same o, huh? But on stage, as they ar stage, the scene has to be give Henry, and his friend only gets, in times of quite serio disapproval.
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Narrator
John Berry arrived at the University of Minn in 1955. He quickly became known ty as a force to be reckoned. As a professor in the humas program he attracted hordes of de students. He held forth at local s after class with fellow fy and admiring, or not soadmiring, West Bank deni.
The Mixers was one suchco bar of notoriety in those days. He continued his esteem scholarship that brought him nation attention that began early in hisI League college days. Berryman, as a Minnesota w, was here for almost two ds during which time hegain widespread acclaim as a boldly original a innovative poet. Richard Kelly is a Berry scholar.
The Elmer L. Andersen Liy on the university's westbaf the Mississippi houses the Berryman Colle. (door thudding) This is probably the m heavily used of all the literature collections here and many books that have out of it, dozens of dissertation, hundreds of articles a reviews. So just figuring even10 t users a year, times 40 years, that's 40 500 users who've come down here proy and used these materials made contributions to the Berryman scholarsh doing so.
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Narrator
A peripateticboyhood that std in Oklahoma, he was graduated from Col in 1939. There he hung out with theg radicals of the influential leftjou, the "Partisan Review," eager to publish upcoming poets at a time not yet open to poetic muse. During two years studyi atEngland's Cambridge University, he managed to rub shouls with some of the great nam the day, both in Greenwich Ville as well as abroad whereh later reputation as a Shakespearean scholar root. John was the latest of poets of his generation to come into his ownbeca Jarrell and Lowell and Delmore Schwartz were approximately his age.
John was a slow develop. John was known to other s and to a few critics long before the public e. And then his poet fame gotd up with the image of John the man with the beard and the dri. And though John was awild and a drinker, he was a very intense wor which people get confused.
There is so much more Berryman than "The Dream Songs" as if that isn't enoughto getting on with. We have a long poem of38 18-line sections. But of course, we'reals dealing with a poet who started publishing in0 at the age of 26 and published a number ofry significant works all the way through the '4d '50s. The most significant of h is what a poem he thoughto his breakthrough poem, "Homage to Mistress Bradst.
"Homage to Mistress Bradstreet"was published 1956. It was the first book ofJo that I published. I happen to think it'sone his greatest books. I mean Edmund Wilson, who was certainly one of best American critics, said it was "the bestlong by an American since T.S.
Eliot's 'Th Wasteland'." -
Narrator
His 77 "DreamSongs" were publishe 1964. The sequence was awarded Pulitzer Prize unveiling as his critics, "the unforgettable andirrepressible alter es Henry and Mr. Bones." The poems were written in d mixture of high lyricism, scrambleddiction, and l comedy. The Dream Songs" plumbed dark recesses of a life scarred by chil shock.
Berryman had never recoveredfrom his father suicide outside his window whenhe 11 years old. If he had a hundred year more and weeping, sleeples, in all them time Henry could not make go. Starts again always in He ear the little cough somewh, an odor, a chime. And there is another thin has in mind like a grave Sienese fe a thousand years would fail to blur thest profiled reproach of.
Ghastly, with open eye, he attends, blind. All the bells say, too l. This is not for tears. Thinking.
You know, where JohnBerr did say something like he wanted to write Dream Songs" as being, I forget the e quote, as being openly hostile toy trend in modern American and Br poetry. Okay, well, that's a greate to start. As I read "The Dream So, which I love for theirconstantly musical, v, astonishing, extreme expre, I can't not be aware that reading the Black voice as a white. Berryman said these songs werenot meant to be unders.
They're meant to terrify comfort. I find the Black voice in songs kind of terrifying like the prospect of tal about it and also comforting. Not to argue that Berrymane of voice that at times sounds likeminstrel theater i untroubling. I wanna suggest insteadt this one voice in "The Songs" might ope place for something now in poetry for poets who wannathink about race and e rather than not think abo, rather than circle aroun.
He's got this deep sea, a religious search if you, where he's asking the majorquestions about dea, and about what is thesignificance of lif? Who is God? What is Go? What is a community, et c?
And he'll do this by talg about everything fromAchi to Bessie Smith, you know, in the same p. The first poem starts w Achilles. "Huffy Henry hid the d. Unappeasable Henry sulk" It was Achilles in his ten ends with the line, "Empty Bed Blues" from Be Smith and everything in betwe.
Well, the thing that go, that really hooked mei Berryman, I suppose, was well, the first "Dr Song". I mean the, "The DreamSon that was the poem I first encountered by J Berryman. And I think of it as a poe he did. He thought of it as a long.
And the very first lineof first "Dream Song", "Huffy Henry hid the da" So that idea of hiding of course is immediate curious, piques your interest. But of course, even thelanguage, the alliteran of that opening line. For anybody interestedi poetry, you're caught. Well, when you say thathal it sounds like rap and half of it sounds l Shakespeare, that idea would've appeal Berryman very much.
One of "The Dream Songs" given the subheading, "'The Prisoner of SharkIsl by Paul Muni". Berryman was deeplyintere in popular culture. His poems, especially "Them Songs", are full of music. The music of Bessie Smith example, and the blues, jazz, pop of his day.
So I think he would'v appreciated this kind of questionabout relationship between the so-called hig low. And Berryman somehow ev think better than Lowell captured the zaniness a craziness of the "Alice in Wonderland"aspects of t Vietnam War. He was, he caught thecrazi of the '60s in a way that nobody elseIw has quite caught it. And that was what Ithink pd me into him, that this guy couldtalk a race issues.
He could talk about male,fe relationships. He could talk about theEisenhower years. He. He would talk about the Ke years.
He would talk about Viet okay? All through the, all throue lens of this fella named Hen. I first encountered JohnBerryman in the sprin 1965. I took one of the humani courses he was offering at th university and it was totally fortui.
I hadn't even heard of before then. But took the courseand turned out to be the best teacher I've eve. And so I ended up taking fr courses from him later on and sittn on classes that he taught. And I managed to remain contact with him.
And after Berryman had d, I had become friends with wife, Kate Berryman. and managed to help arre to have his manuscriptspl on deposit here in the university archi. "Lucky
Life
Meeting Ber at 18". I first heard John Berryman'sname from Garri Keillor. He looked at me and sa, "You know, most people'sp can be improved." (audience chuckling) I saw he was right, but Idt know how to back down and into the silence he, "Except Berryman's sente. You could make a changein of his sentences but it wouldn't matte.
You couldn't improve i" I pretended to know who Berryman was. (audience members laugh) Soon I learned. A great poet and teachingr across the street, two facts that seemed mut exclusive. But in turn, each memberof magazine staff, Garrison then Lew Hyde, thm Moore took a class from Berry.
There were no creative wr courses at the university the. Berryman taught what todayd be called great books in the now defunct humani program. He taught the Greeks,Dan people like that. It didn't matter.
Students signed up forBerr, not Dante. Berryman came in. And Berryman didn't have thekind of reputation he now. He had only one book publd but he had a long poemth appeared in a magazine exactly during our semer and it's called "Homage Mistress Bradstreet".
And it's a breakthrouh into what would become " Dream Songs". I mean, Berryman's unique is there. And he was the most fabulousteacher I ever ha my life. He was very demanding.
He was very honest and heh great sense of humor. So he could be demolishing poem while you laughed. (audience laughing) He just had some amazing. Also, he was unbelievab well-educated, largely self-educated.
He was a fraud in one w. He spoke with this crazy Eh accent. (audience laughing) And he grew up, he wasbor Oklahoma where- (audience laughing) The population of those bo England is rare, you know. I mean, but he talked in high, "Oh, Philip, what areyo reading these days?" (audience laughing)And h shit, what's going on here?
But so it was, it was kind, it was, it was theate. The class was theater, bu was serious and he gave everything he. He would prepare forhours these classes. And it was a fabulous cl.
My fellow students were, therewere three of us in class who would win the Pulit Prize. -
Audience Member
Life
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Narrator
Life
Berryman's earlywork defines a zeitg. His star arose at a tie
when the who's who of t poetryworld was in the ascendant
Auden, Pound, Yates, the young Dylan Thoma. They reached an elite puc who became as intereste intheir lives as in the poems. Their works became part o post-war literary canon. In the late '30s, Berryman, albeit still in orbit, was included in the groundbreaking"Fi Young American Poets" introduced by the"Partis Review" in 1939.
A lot of the idiom that using now needs footnotes so you're gonna haveto exp some of this to the student today, o, because they're 40, 50ye down the line. I find that the students I've taught the Berryman to love him,? They love his zanines. They love his intellige.
They love his honesty, cetera. For me, Berryman never g old. You know, he's there. He's still at the top for Yeah.
Well, the issue of an interest in Berryman is this is a very tric question, because the history of Ber reception is itself quite complica. I think it is true to y that in the 1980s in partr there was something of alun Berryman studies. Critics seemed to have l interest in his work for a whil. It is true to say toothat recent years, many poets, especially Ame poets but also poets in Ireland n the UK, have seen Berryman as enabling figure.
They haven't, I mean,he is of those poets who it would be foolish t and imitate because his style is so orl and idiosyncratic especial "The Dream Songs". My breathing stop My heart beat slow So when my mom and John in I would be cold From a bridge on Washin Avenue The year of 1972 broke bones and skull And it was memorable But I'm very unsure about value of that referencing and what it actually me, and what aspect of Berrymanthey're tuning i. It often is, especially Okkervil River's case, it often is an attempt to engage with their understandingof the life oe poet, the death of the poet particular, but not with the work. (people chattering) I think that there's ju aura of pain and torment th surrounds him because all of these songs or less talk about his death.
And certainly other artiste committed suicide. And, you know, it's alm disgusting to fetishize someone's d, but there's just such aradiating aura of pain around Berryman to me. I think if there's a n generation who's getting moreinterestn John Berryman, I think John Berryman wass like the astronaut who went out there andexpl those territories, those emotional territos and spiritual territors before, you know, beforea of other people did. (lively piano music) I think the musicality the words and they are bluesy and wh or not, I mean, they probablydo c from the fact that it's minstrelsy and Mr.
Bones and his blace and there's high art andlot in "The Dream Songs" and I think some of the maybeare more bluesy th others. What journey is it? The mid-century confessionalnarrative p excellence. The breakdown plot we mighl it.
One sensitive person res to the dysfunction of his and place and cracks. I believe this mid-centurybreakdown narre was never told morecomple or compellingly than in this book. (somber bluesy music) There sat down once A thing on Henry's hea So heavy The image of Berrymanw strongly influenced by the suicide, which I think in many ws is one of the leastinteres things about him. But it got the headlins and people are aware of t where they weren't evenma aware of him before.
And he also had somenotor for his drinking and somewhat erratic beha. But he was a wonderfulteac a wonderful scholar. The only thing I cansay a the advantage of some of the people who become interested in him because of the suicid, I think the only advantag that is that it might lead them his work, which is the most import thing. When you're talkingaboutr instance, suicide and you're talking abo alcoholism.
those seem to be the pri things that people kind of glomo just because of the negat of them. But, you know, he was an ag teacher. He was a really brillia writer. He was really a greatShakespearean schol.
There are so many side Berryman. One way to get a good sen this is to look at Richard Kel catalog of Berryman's personal li. And you look through that and you have a sense of this remarkable intelle scholar- Yeah.- working across range of English poetry and poetic history also engaged by question theology and philosophy. The last days and poig reference I found in his books was in the end papers ofS Bellow's "Dangling Man" made just eight days befor death, where he both markedand d this passage.
"I feel I am a sort of h grenade whose pin has been withd. I know I am going to expe and I am continually anticipating the time with prayerful despair, cr 'Boom!' but always prematurely" The patron saint of purg, that's how I see Berrym. A guy who kept struggling,struggling, struggling right up till the end. So the hell with theway went, you know.
What's important is, I m he's so real and he's got so much to t us. Well, I think it's lo overdue for a resurrection. (laug) Henry needs to be resurre anytime now just because people are y to hear all of those vos and things all at onc. I think we live in a worl that is much more capable of understanding theconten those pieces and the sharp juxtapositiod quick changes that happen from one line e next.
I think people are,people much more able to assimilate those kind quick changes now than maybe they were whe, he was way ahead of his t (chuckles) He was a genius ahead of time I think. So we're hear this eveni praise as Bill Meredith said, "To bring him back intol where he belongs." He belongs in life. We're not here to focus o death, the manner of his dying bu amazing life in him, to honor his life, to listen into his langu, the dazzling innovationsof mixture of dictions, his jazz, his Brahms as it. -
Interviewer
when the who's who of t poetryworld was in the ascendant
What woul like to be most remembered about John Berryman? The fact that I worked. That's quite enough for. (chaotic jazzy music) -
Man
when the who's who of t poetryworld was in the ascendant
"He knows. He went over everyonean nobody's missing. Often he reckons, in the them up. Nobody is ever missing"
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