This week: John Berryman Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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Winter Landscape
by John Berryman
The three men coming down the winter hill
In brown, with tall poles and a pack of hounds
At heel, through the arrangement of the trees,
Past the five figures at the burning straw,
Returning cold and silent to their town,
Returning to the drifted snow, the rink
Lively with children, to the older men,
The long companions they can never reach,
The blue light, men with ladders, by the church
The sledge and shadow in the twilit street,
Are not aware that in the sandy time
To come, the evil waste of history
Outstretched, they will be seen upon the brow
Of that same hill: when all their company
Will have been irrecoverably lost,
These men, this particular three in brown
Witnessed by birds will keep the scene and say
By their configuration with the trees,
The small bridge, the red houses and the fire,
What place, what time, what morning occasion
Sent them into the wood, a pack of hounds
At heel and the tall poles upon their shoulders,
Thence to return as now we see them and
Ankle-deep in snow down the winter hill
Descend, while three birds watch and the fourth flies.
On October 25 1914, in McAlester, Oklahoma John Smith and his wife Martha welcomed their son John Berryman, into their family. Berryman was born John Allen Smith Jr. Berryman's father John was a banker and his mother Martha was a school teacher. Berryman lived in Oklahoma until the age of ten when his parents moved to Florida. After moving to Florida Berryman’s father was unable to find work and his mother filed for divorce. When Berryman was eleven his father shot and killed himself. Berryman would struggle with his father's death for the rest of his life. He wrote about it in his poetry in his later years. Shortly after his father's death, his mother remarried and changed her name and John's last name to Berryman.
Berryman went to Columbia College and got his undergraduate degree in 1936. From there he went to Cambridge University on a fellowship. Berryman then taught at the Wayne State University in Detroit. He would teach and lecture at Harvard, Princeton and Brown University in the following years, but would spend most of his teaching career at the University of Minnesota.
Berryman’s first publication was a volume entitled “Five Young American Poets,” published in 1940. His next book “Poems,” was published in 1942 followed by “The Dispossessed,” in 1948. Though his early works showed great skill and followed the times, it was not until he was in his forties that he would get widespread recognition with, “Homage to Mistress Bradstreet,” published in 1956. “77 Dream Songs” was published in 1964 and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. John Berryman was elected a Fellow of The Academy of American poets in 1966. He served as Chancellor from 1968 until his death in 1972.
Berryman’s private life was not as successful as his teaching and poetic careers were. He struggled with alcoholism and fought off demons from his father’s suicide. He was said to have been married three times and hospitalized several times to detox. In the end his depression and drinking won, John Berryman jumped to his death off the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis on January 7, 1972.
The Traveler
by John Berryman
They pointed me out on the highway, and they said
'That man has a curious way of holding his head.'
They pointed me out on the beach; they said 'That man
Will never become as we are, try as he can.'
They pointed me out at the station, and the guard
Looked at me twice, thrice, thoughtfully & hard.
I took the same train that the others took,
To the same place. Were it not for that look
And those words, we were all of us the same.
I studied merely maps. I tried to name
The effects of motion on the travelers,
I watched the couple I could see, the curse
And blessings of that couple, their destination,
The deception practiced on them at the station,
Their courage. When the train stopped and they knew
The end of their journey, I descended too.
The Curse
by John Berryman
Cedars and the westward sun.
The darkening sky. A man alone
Watches beside the fallen wall
The evening multitudes of sin
Crowd in upon us all.
For when the light fails they begin
Nocturnal sabotage among
The outcast and the loose of tongue,
The lax in walk, the murderers:
Our twilight universal curse.
Children are faultless in the wood,
Untouched. If they are later made
Scandal and index to their time,
It is that twilight brings for bread
The faculty of crime.
Only the idiot and the dead
Stand by, while who were young before
Wage insolent and guilty war
By night within that ancient house,
Immense, black, damned, anonymous.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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I stared into an autumn sky
so azure, crisp, and clear.
A chilly breeze touched my cheek
as a blue-black crow flew by.
He was so free, no barricade,
as he soared above my head.
My mind was lifted on the wind,
sweet liberty itself displayed.
I pictured creatures down below -
some lives in chaos, some at rest,
But like the crow, I sailed above,
guided where the wind did blow.
I left a toxic world behind,
wondering why it took so long
to spread my wings and glide
from what held me so confined.
A thousand thoughts came to me
and magic colors bright and pale;
I sang a multitude of songs
that day when I flew free.
Then my feet began to long
to walk and run and fall.
That’s what I was meant to do,
‘though dreaming keeps me strong.
I took one feather from the crow
and settled to the ground.
Will I fly again someday?
I certainly hope so!
Honorable mentions:
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Poetry: October 10, 2018 Issue [#9163]
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