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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Berryman
John Berryman
John Berryman was born John Smith in MacAlester, Oklahoma, in 1914. He received an undergraduate degree from Columbia College in 1936...
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FURTHER READING
Related Prose
A Brief Guide to Confessional Poetry
Groundbreaking Book: The Dream Songs by John Berryman (1964)
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by John Berryman
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Huffy Henry hid    the day,

unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,--a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.

All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry's side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don't see how Henry, pried
open for all the world to see, survived.

What he has now to say is a long
wonder the world can bear & be.
Once in a sycamore I was glad
all at the top, and I sang.
Hard on the land wears the strong sea
and empty grows every bed.



From The Dream Songs by John Berryman, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Copyright © 1959, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 by John Berryman. Used with permission.


Audio Clip
October 31, 1963
Guggenhiem Museum
From the Academy Audio Archive
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