A themed issue today. I don’t do these often, but despite his death when I was just two, John Berryman has become a central figure in my life. He worked ceaselessly, it’s true, but he also had a gift—clearly evident in his diaries and correspondence—for the unexpected word, the surprising twist of thought and phrase, that could transform the journey of a line, poem or letter. We can miss someone we’ve never known.

WORK

“Transit”

—For John Berryman

Untidy life of faith and fear and the unfaith
stretch your sexy span across the city
an unforgiving breath from birth to bitter
for he’ll remember every slight and kindness
and know that we will likely someday mutter

—- I never heard why
Or just how, it was something to do with a bridge —-

Under which flows it all ever endlessly
water traffic the dreams the deeps the certainty that
untidy love has him as its sweet kernel
faithless fearless frightened closing the circle
singing Tomorrow we’ll do our best, our best
Tomorrow we’ll do our best.

—Maura Dooley
—from After Thirty Falls: New Essays on John Berryman

WORD(S)

nitid. adjective. Lustrous, glossy, bright, polished. From Latin nitidus (bright, shiny).

“Nitid. They are shooting me full of sings.
I give no rules. Write as short as you can,
in order, of what matters.
I think of my beloved poet
Issa & his father who
sat down on the grass and took leave of each other.” (John Berryman)

“Nereids beneath the nitid moon.” (P.B. Rice)

“The nitid Hues Which speck them o’er.” (James Thomson)

“Layer after layer of nitid, lustrous rock drifted past.” (David Brin)

WEB

1. Thanks to YouTube you can discover some of Berryman’s Dream Songs in a recording of a 1968 reading that otherwise exists only on a single cassette. I’ve created a linked video index, with poem titles, so you can jump directly to each one if you wish to skip the banter.

2. In honor of Berryman’s centenary, The Academy of American Poets just published a decent essay with previously unavailable audio from one of Berryman’s earliest readings from The Dream Songs.

3. Okkervil River’s song “John Allyn Smith Sets Sail” is brilliant, weaving together facts of Berryman’s life, death and psyche that demonstrate real knowledge of his life. Then, in a twist Berryman would have appreciated, they work the Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B.” into a song that makes me tear up almost every time.

4. “I have a tiny little secret hope that, after a decent period of silence and prose, I will find myself in some almost impossible life situation and will respond to this with outcries of rage, rage and love, such as the world has never heard before. Like Yeats’s great outburst at the end of his life. […] The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he’s in business.” → A July 1970 Paris Review Interview with John Berryman.

5. Today in 1914, poet John Berryman is born. Often referred to (usually disparagingly) as a “Confessional” poet—a term he hated—Berryman’s greatest achievement, The Dream Songs, defies easy (or any) classification. Suffering from withering depression, a suicidal legacy, chronic alcoholism and, despite considerable accolades, severe impostor syndrome, Berryman leapt from a bridge in Minneapolis in 1972.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader S. notes re: the Supreme Court Coincidence of 10/23: “Would that we had Borked Clarence Thomas…”

• Reader J. shares a real find: “My favorite list poem in the world (everyone gives his/her students a list exercise at some point, and they’re always sad affairs) is this, by Denise Duhamel”

• Reader S. also shares a favorite epitaph: “Say what you will about Robert Frost, but I love his epitaph: ”I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.""

I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.

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