John Berryman

by John Berryman

In the galleys of “Venice, 182-” (1. 25), “are” appears with a grave accent rather than the acute in the printer’s TS. Since Berryman most frequently favored the acute accent, I have followed the printer’s TS. I have also added an extra ellipsis point to “‘There…’” because it appears in a quotation.

  Although neither the TS nor the galleys show opening quotation marks in l.23 and l.42 of “American Lights, Seen From Off Abroad,” they do show closing marks. I have added opening quotation marks in both lines.

  “Formal Elegy” (1964) (from SHORT POEMS, 1967)

  Editor’s Note: “Formal Elegy” was first published in Of Poetry and Power: Poems Occasioned by the Presidency and Death of John F. Kennedy, foreword by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., edited with an introduction by Erwin A. Glikes and Paul Schwaber (Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1964) and collected in Short Poems. I have followed the text in Short Poems, but in keeping with my editorial guideline on single quotation marks, in l.67 I have emended “education” to ‘education.’

  LOVE & FAME (1971)

  The Copy-Text of L&F for CP: The copy-text of L&F for CP is based on the page proofs, with Berryman’s HW changes, which he sent to Faber and Faber in the spring of 1971. Although the FSG second edition, revised, of L&F was published a year after the FF edition, Berryman actually made his last revisions for FF. He revised the FSG edition in January 1971 and the FF edition in March and June 1971. The FF page proofs are at the Columbia University Libraries.

  The printing errors in the FF edition, insofar as I have been able to determine them by comparing it with the FSG first and second editions, have been corrected for CP. I have followed the American rather than the British spelling of the FF edition except in those instances where Berryman, as was his habit, preferred British spelling, as in “Her & It,” l.16: “cheques” rather than “checks.”

  Publication History of L&F: Similar to the intense period of composition of Sonnets, Berryman wrote the first drafts of most of L&F in two months. He wrote the first four or five poems on February 4, 1970; by April he completed the last. He made so many revisions in the first set of galleys in August that a second set of galleys, dated September 9, had to be done. The second galleys show a few HW corrections, not in Berryman’s hand, but there are no substantive changes. The first edition was published on December 15, but before it was issued, he was at work on the second edition, revised.

  Berryman’s uncertainty, manifest in both his extensive revisions in the galleys and his requests for advice from a dozen friends, is partly explainable, he said, in that he had not written short poems in over twenty years. Less than two months after he wrote the first poems, he completed the first TS of L&F by March 23, 1970—forty-two poems (Parts I, II, and III), each numbered and untitled—which did not include “Eleven Addresses to the Lord.” He sent photocopies to “a dozen of my friends,” as he wrote in the cover letter with each copy, to read and “CRITICIZE.” Most responded in April, among them Mark Van Doren, Richard Wilbur, Adrienne Rich, Edmund Wilson, Edward Hoagland, Franklin Reeve, Maris Thomes, and Deneen Peckinpah. By early August Berryman had proofed the galleys of L&F, which included “Eleven Addresses to the Lord.”

  The first unfavorable reviews of the first edition of L&F in November 1970 spurred Berryman to revise lines and delete whole poems in the collection. He wrote to Robert Giroux on January 25, 1971: “I hope to Christ the first edition sells out quickly and you can reprint.” In the same letter, he enclosed a preface (“Scholia to Second Edition”) and asked that six poems be deleted. “I’ll send you—phone you if necessary,” he added, “the very few corrections in the text.” Of the 6,000 copies of the first edition FSG had printed, Giroux wrote on February 4, only 1,000 were left, but the second edition did not materialize until November 15, 1972. The revisions Berryman sent to Giroux in January 1971 were to stand as his final revisions for the FSG second edition, revised.

  In the meantime Charles Monteith of Faber and Faber, Ltd. planned to publish L&F in England. He read the FSG galleys of the first edition in August 1970 and on the twentieth he wrote to Berryman that FF would offset from the FSG edition. Monteith had himself been corresponding with Berryman, and in December, when he learned of Berryman’s revisions, he wrote to Giroux that FF would now offset from the second printing. But FSG’s plans to publish the second edition in March 1971 changed to a later date, and FF proceeded with making up their own galleys. In mid-March, Berryman revised and deleted several poems—probably on an unbound copy, the extant manuscripts suggest, of the FSG first edition—and sent Monteith the revised copy. Monteith planned to publish L&F, as he wrote to Giroux, “in the early autumn [1971] in its revised form.”

  Monteith sent Berryman two sets of FF’s galleys on June 2 with instructions to return one set, which Berryman did on June 21 with further comments and instructions: “Some of the typos are grave. All are listed on the front leaf. I’ve revised only a few details.” He enclosed a TS of the “Afterword” which is, except for a sentence in the penultimate paragraph and the entire final paragraph, the same as “Scholia to Second Edition,” which would appear in the FSG edition over a year later. The page proofs followed shortly thereafter, and Berryman made some twenty changes and corrections.

  When FSG published the second edition, revised, of L&F on November 15, 1972—nearly two years after Berryman had made his changes—FSG assumed, apparently, that Berryman’s revisions for the FF edition in March and June 1971 were the same as those he had made for FSG the preceding January. In any event, it is clear that Berryman’s last revisions were in the FF edition.

  VARIANTS: Left of the ] is the FF author’s corrected page proofs, except where noted; right of the ] is the FSG second edition, revised.

  “Cadenza on Garnette”

  1.20: Editor’s Note: The FSG two-point ellipsis of “Poets! . . Lovers” is accepted for CP.

  “Shirley & Auden”

  1.16: Editor’s Note: The FSG spelling of “chauffeured,” rather than the FF proofs spelling of “chauffered,” is accepted for CP.

  1.38: Editor’s Note: The FSG two-point ellipsis of “Coquet . .” is accepted for CP.

  1.65: Editor’s Note: The italicizing of “first” in the FF proofs is a printing error, which I have emended.

  “Drunks”

  1.18: young] young new

  “Olympus”

  1.17: Editor’s Note: I have followed the FSG version of “15 ¢” rather than the FF proofs of “15c.”

  1.34: less] but never so

  “Nowhere”

  1.10: blues,] blues, at the Apollo & on records.

  “In & Out”

  1.8: Editor’s Note: The FF page proofs show Corbière with an acute accent rather than a grave; the FSG version is correct and accepted for CP.

  1.41: witty &] a little

  1.43: beat] pounded

  1.62: and slovenly, Zander] & slovenly, he (Editor’s Note: “Zander” is printed as “Zauder” in the FF edition. Berryman’s HW change in the proofs could be read as “Zauder,” but his “n”s often look like “u”s. There actually was a Randolph Zander enrolled at Columbia at the time Berryman was there.)

  “The Heroes”

  1.9: Editor’s Note: The FSG spelling of “maneuvered” and the circumflex on “rôles” are accepted.

  “Crisis”

  1.58: Editor’s Note: The FSG spelling of “installment” is accepted for CP.

  “Recovery”

  1.10: Editor’s Note: The comma after “wheel-chair” in the FSG edition is accepted for CP; I believe the missing comma in the FF edition is a printing error.

  1.22: Editor’s Note: I have emended “scholarship…” to “scholarship . .”

  “Away”

  Title: Editor’s Note: The title of “Away” in the FSG edition appears as “Anyway” in the FF edition. Berryman did not correct the title in the FF proofs, but in the Table of Contents in the FF page proofs the title appears as “Away.” I believe that he overlooked the FF printing error
of “Anyway,” and I have accepted the title “Away” as it appears in all other extant copies and proofs of L&F.

  “First Night at Sea”

  1.15: Editor’s Note: Berryman misremembered the surname of the composer Walter Morse Rummel as “Memel.” In letters to both his mother and Mark Van Doren in 1936, he spells the name as “Rumel.” I have not, however, changed Berryman’s spelling.

  1.21: Editor’s Note: The FSG comma after “ballads” is accepted; the period after “ballads” in the FF proofs is a printing error.

  “London”

  1.17: Editor’s Note: The comma after “Hotel” in the FSG edition is missing in the FF edition; I have admitted the comma in the FSG edition.

  “The Other Cambridge”

  1.18: Editor’s Note: The FF spelling of “sweart” is, I believe, a misprint; I have accepted the FSG “swear.” But a more serious error occurs in Berryman’s quoting what Essex actually said to Ralegh. It should be: “What booteth it to swear the fox?” rather than “What boots it swear The Fox.” I have not emended the quotation.

  1.41: Editor’s Note: The FSG spelling of “Queens’” is accepted; the FF version of “Queen’s” is a printing error.

  1.21: Freans] Frean’s

  “Monkhood”

  1.28: ‘Satanic pride’,] ‘Satanic pride’

  1.41: Editor’s Note: The FSG capitalization of “One” is accepted; the FF lower case is a printing error.

  “Views of Myself”

  1.2 Editor’s Note: FF proofs show a misspelling of Advocate which is corrected for CP.

  1.27: Editor’s Note: The FSG spelling of “bite” is accepted; the FF spelling of “bit” appears to be a printing error. The second part of the quotation—“am quiet”—suggests that the first part should be in the present tense as well, that is, “bite” rather than “bit.”

  “Meeting”

  1.3: Editor’s Note: The FSG spelling of “center” is accepted.

  “Tea”

  1.13: Lives] He lives

  “Relations”

  1.4: Editor’s Note: In the FF galley proofs, Berryman changed “Peckinpah” to “Pekinpah.” Since Deneen Peckinpah spells her name with a “c,” and since the name is spelled correctly in the FSG edition, I have emended the FF version to the correct spelling.

  1.8: resume] be

  “Antitheses”

  1.17: Editor’s Note: I have emended “Leonardo…” to “Leonardo . .”

  1.19: Editor’s Note: The FSG spelling of “skeptical” is accepted.

  1.23: Editor’s Note: The FF version of “at” is, I believe, a misprint; I have followed the FSG version of “as.”

  “Have a Genuine American Horror-&-Mist on the Rocks”

  1.3: Editor’s Note: The FSG ellipsis in “Waal . .” is accepted.

  “Damned”

  1.7: Editor’s Note: The FSG spelling of “mustache” is accepted.

  “The Hell Poem”

  1.4: except for when] except when

  1.13: coming] she came

  “Purgatory”

  1.20: Editor’s Note: The period after “67” in the FSG edition is accepted; the FF version is a printing error.

  1.25: retired,] retired, frail,

  “Heaven”

  1.11: married before she died,] was killed in a car accident soon after she married,

  1.15: whatever yen—] my lust for her

  1.16: forgive] persuade me to forgive

  “Eleven Addresses to the Lord: 1”

  1.21: Peter and] Peter &

  “Eleven Addresses to the Lord: 6”

  1.3: blow-it-all] suicide

  “Eleven Addresses to the Lord: 7”

  1.7: never has] has never

  “Eleven Addresses to the Lord”: A Prayer for the Self

  Editor’s Note: In the FSG galleys (September 9, 1970) the number 8 was not deleted as it is in the first and subsequent editions. The only instruction in the September 9 galleys, not in Berryman’s hand, was to move the number to a new position on the page. While it is possible that Berryman could have deleted the number after the galleys were corrected, and while one may reasonably argue that Berryman did not add the number to either the FSG second and FF editions, I have chosen to recover the number because it is more in keeping with the title of the series (i.e., “Eleven Addresses…”) and because all the other prayers are numbered.

  DELUSIONS etc of John Berryman (1972)

  ABBREVIATIONS FOR De:

  TS-4:

  File 4 in Box 1 in JBP: Delusions and Sonnets, Third Inventory; see “The Copy-Text” section for a description of TS-4.

  PMS:

  The printer’s MS copy for FSG; the PMS is in the possession of Robert Giroux; see “The Copy-Text” section for a description of the PMS.

  The Copy-Text of De for CP: The copy-text of De is based on a combination of the PMS and Berryman’s working MS. Since Berryman did not live to proof the galleys, his last revisions, rather than his final intentions, must be carefully considered. Although any revision of a poem represents but one version of it, I have chosen, where I could determine them, Berryman’s last revisions as the copy-text. The evidence in Berryman’s papers, Robert Giroux’s files, and the correspondence between them shows that De was in process of revision even while the galley proofs were being set. Because the poems were in process, as opposed to the revisions in TD eleven years after it was published, Berryman’s last revisions must represent his final intentions.

  In order to determine Berryman’s last revisions, I compared all extant copies (TS, CTS, HWMS, photocopies, and photocopies with HW changes) of each poem in De. Most of the changes in the text of De for CP (i.e., different from the FSG 1972 edition) are based on the MSS that appear to postdate the PMS. All other changes taken from other MSS are noted in the “Variants” section below.

  Toward determining Berryman’s last revisions for De, I drew upon three major sources for the text of CP:

  1. Robert Giroux’s personal file: letters to and from Berryman; several TSS and CTSS of Berryman’s various tables of contents for De; photocopies of twenty-nine poems, all of which Berryman either rejected or revised for the PMS (this file does not contain a complete MS of De)

  2. The printer’s MS (PMS): nine TSS; thirty photocopies of TSS; three poems photocopied from magazines and one cut out of the magazine in which it appeared

  3. Berryman’s MSS: HW fragments, HWMS, TSS, CTSS, and photocopies in JBP (ten files in the “Third Inventory, Published Poetry, Box 1: Delusions and Sonnets”)

  Of the ten De files of Berryman’s notes and MSS in JBP, the four most valuable in determining an authoritative text of De are:

  File 1: A photocopy of an October 1971 TS of De—probably the copy sent to Robert Fitzgerald, which he returned to Berryman with a letter (October 17, 1971); the penciled X’s on the MS indicate Fitzgerald’s recommendations for deletions

  File 2: One HWMS, CTSS, and photocopies of most of the poems in De; the CTSS and the photocopies were typed in October and November 1971

  File 4 (i.e., TS-4): TSS, CTSS, and photocopies—many with HW changes; the pages in this file are arranged numerically in an unbound black folder; some of the MSS in this file appear to have been written in October and as late as December 1971

  Unnumbered file: Labeled, in Kate Donahue’s writing, “Delusions, typed, corrected, rejected”: primarily CTSS

  In determining Berryman’s last revisions, the nine original TS of poems in the PMS may be set apart from the photo- and magazine copies because the TSS appear to be Berryman’s last revisions of them. The TSS include: “Nones,” “Beethoven Triumphant,” “In Memoriam (1914–1953),” “Gislebertus’ Eve,” “Scholars at the Orchid Pavilion,” “The Handshake, The Entrance,” “Navajo Setting the Record Straight,” “Unknowable? perhaps not altogether,” and “Facts & Issues.” All the photo- and magazine copies in the PMS do not necessarily represent Berryman’s last revisions; they have been compared with other MS copy.<
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  Except for the original TSS in the PMS, the MS of De that contains most of Berryman’s last revisions is file 4 (TS-4). That this MS is in a black folder, the only extant MS of De so filed, suggests that it was to be distinguished from his other De files of notes and MSS. The most compelling evidence that the TS-4 file was his working copy is that the photocopies in the PMS were made from it. TS-4 alone, however, has not determined all the changes in De for CP: several MSS in other files appear to postdate both the photocopies in PMS and the MSS in TS-4. Finally, where the magazine copy of certain poems in the PMS is different from Berryman’s MSS, the MS copy prevails.

  Publication & Composition History: Berryman’s plan for the organization and contents of De began as less of a whole than his plan for L&F. In his first table of contents for De on August 4, 1970 (his first working title was Last Poems), he listed seventeen poems—about half of which appear in the final copy of De—and “the prayer in progr[ess],” presumably “Opus Dei.” As his plans for the volume took shape, he periodically revised his table of contents (the extant “Tables” are dated September 14, September 25, December 28, 1970, and January 16, 1971). On January 25, 1971, he wrote to Robert Giroux that he had “50 poems at present” for De, which “may be ready by Easter or it may not be ready till Christmas.”

  Berryman wrote most of the poems for De between August 1970 and May 1971. He called Giroux in mid-May to tell him of his progress, and Giroux responded in a letter on May 19, 1971: “[De] as you described it on the telephone is really exciting. If it turns out to be ready for the fall of next year (and it sounds as if it will), I’d be delighted.” But De was ready much sooner than Giroux anticipated. By late summer 1971, the first TS was completed, and in October Berryman sent a copy—some TSS, some photocopied—for the printer.

  After the PMS was sent to Giroux, Berryman continued to revise several poems, and in a few instances he seemed to have lost track of whether or not the copy in the PMS included his latest revisions. Perhaps he was counting on making his further revisions in galleys as he had done in L&F; certainly he was following a similar pattern of revision in asking friends to criticize his MS. Berryman sent copies of the De TS in early October 1971 to Robert Fitzgerald and Richard Wilbur. In his letter to Wilbur (which Wilbur dates October 9, 1971), he wrote: “[I]n my prostrate opinion the book [De] is still raging w. trash. Questions: is it worth publishing? and if so, how much of it? Have no mercy.” Both Wilbur and Fitzgerald responded favorably in general, but, as Wilbur wrote on October 20, “I don’t find all of it best Berryman, and … my vote, for what it’s worth, is for some deletions and additions. Had you not class and continuing oomph, I would not cavil.”