John Berryman fut une figure majeure de la poésie américaine de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. Ses œuvres, notamment le cycle "The Dream Songs", se distinguent par leur caractère ludique, spirituel et morbide. Bien que souvent associé à l'école confessionnelle, Berryman lui-même réfutait cette classification. Son style unique et ses explorations thématiques ont profondément influencé les générations de poètes suivantes.
John Berryman was an energetic correspondent. Assembled here for the first time, his letters tell of generosity, ambition, and struggle. He has encouraging words for fellow poets and younger writers and is deeply engaged in literary culture. But also visible are the struggles of a working artist grappling with alcoholism and depression.
This volume brings together all of Berryman's poetry, except for his epic The Dream Songs, ranging from his earliest unpublished poem (1934) to those written in the last months of his life (1972). A definitive edition of one of America's most distinguished poets.
Some months before his tragic death in January 1972, John Berryman completed this selection from the whole of his published poetry. It reveals clearly that Berryman was one of the most original and important poets of the twentieth century.
This edition combines The Dream Songs, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1965, and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1969 and contains all 385 songs. Of The Dream Songs, A. Alvarez wrote in The Observer, "A major achievement. He has written an elegy on his brilliant generation and, in the process, he has also written an elegy on himself."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.
Faber are pleased to announce the relaunch of the poetry list - starting in Spring 2001 and continuing, with publication dates each month, for the rest of the year. This will involve a new jacket design recalling the typographic virtues of the classic Faber poetry covers, connecting the backlist and the new titles within a single embracing cover solution. A major reissue program is scheduled, to include classic individual collections from each decade, some of which have long been unavailable: Wallace Stevens's Harmonium and Ezra Pound's Personae from the 1920s; W.H. Auden's Poems (1930); Robert Lowell's Life Studies from the 1950s; John Berryman's 77 Dream Songs and Philip Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings from the 1960s; Ted Hughes's Gaudete and Seamus Heaney's Field Work from the 1970s; Michael Hofmann's Acrimony and Douglas Dunn's Elegies from the 1980s. Timed to celebrate publication of Seamus Heaney's new collection, Electric Light, the relaunch is intended to re-emphasize the predominance of Faber Poetry, and to celebrate a series which has played a shaping role in the history of modern poetry since its inception in the 1920s.
In this series, contemporary poets select and introduce a poet of the past who they have particularly admired. By their selection and personal and critical reactions, they offer an insight into their own work, as well as providing an introduction to some of the greatest poets in history.
John Berryman was perhaps the most idiosyncratic American poet of the twentieth century. The Heart Is Strange, a new selection of his poems, along with reissues of Berryman's Sonnets, 77 Dream Songs, and the complete Dream Songs, marked the centenary of his birth. This book includes a generous selection from across Berryman's varied career.
Poet John Berryman's foundational novel of addiction and recovery was writtenjust before his 1972 suicide and is a powerful portrayal of the protagonist'seternally indefinite attempts to free himself from the grip of addiction.
The Defining Moments In Its Western Tradition by John Berryman
This classical work has been preserved and republished in a modern format to ensure its continued relevance for present and future generations. The text has been carefully reformatted and retyped, avoiding scanned copies to provide clarity and readability. This effort emphasizes the importance of the book throughout human history, making it accessible to a new audience while honoring its legacy.