January 07, 2009
Berryman Misses the Mississippi (1972)
With a wave to bystanders on a chilly morning in Minneapolis, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Walter Berryman swan-dived off the Washington Avenue bridge and hit the frozen bank by the Mississippi River.It was a tragic end to the confessional poet's tragic life. Born John Allyn Smith, he was only 12 when his father, a banker who had lost his job, had shot himself. Within two month, his wife married the man she had been having an affair with, and that man gave John his last name of Berryman.
For the rest of his life, the poet was haunted by his father's suicide, and that theme would surface repeatedly in his poetry. His collection, "77 Dream Songs," won the Pultizer Prize for poetry in 1964. But his obscure confessional style, admired by critics, kept him from being as popular as poets such as Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. He would joke that, worldwide, he had 30 good readers.
Near the end of his life, beset by depression and weighed down by alcoholism and the belief that he had lost his writing gift, he killed himself.
Since then, Berryman has inspired a number of song by indy rock artists. The group Clap Your Hands Say Yeah namechecks him in "Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning?", as does Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in "We Call Upon the Author." Probably the most evocative use is found in Okkervil River's "John Allyn Smith Sails," which not only explicitly describes Berryman dashing his brains out on the banks of the river, but segues into the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B," adding a deeper meaning to the plaintive lament, "this is the worst tip / I've ever been on."
Born: Charles Peguy, philosopher, poet, Orléans, France, 1873; Zora Neale Hurston, novelist, anthropologist, Notasulga, Ala., 1891; Charles Addams, cartoonist, Westfield, N.J., 1912; Hugh Kenner, critic, professor, author, Peterborough, Ontario, 1923; William Peter Blatty, screenwriter, novelist, New York City, 1928; Jann Wenner, publisher, New York City, 1947.
Died: Allan Ramsay, poet, bookseller, wigmaker, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1758; Edward Channing, historian, Cambridge, Mass., 1931; John Berryman, poet, essayist, Minneapolis, Minn., 1972; David Goodis, noir novelist, Philadelphia, Penn., 1967.
Quote for the Day: "I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife." — Zora Neale Hurston, novelist, anthropologist, who was born today in 1891
Also from "Writers 365":
- The Hemingway to go (1961)
- Gore Vidal Takes Down William F. Buckley (1968)
- Chance saves Jerzy Kosinski (1969)
- Best Head of the ‘70s (1975)
- Norman Mailer's song (1981)
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