John Berryman

by John Berryman

  “Facts & Issues”

  Editor’s Note: “Facts & Issues” is based on the TS in the PMS.

  1.35: far-away] faraway (Editor’s Note: The TS in PMS indicates a hyphen in “faraway,” which FSG either emended or overlooked.)

  “King David Dances”

  1.1: world] world,

  1.3: sight] sight,

  Editor’s Note: In l.4 of the photocopy in PMS, the phrase “slaughter devising” that appears in the FSG edition is “murder conspiring,” but in TS-4 the phrase “murder conspiring” is crossed out and “slaughter devising” is written in. How the phrase in the FSG edition became the correct one, I am not certain (i.e., “murder conspiring” should be “slaughter devising” because the photocopy of the TS with a HW change in TS-4 postdates the PMS version). In any event, the FSG version is correct.

  EARLY POEMS

  from “TWENTY POEMS” in FIVE YOUNG AMERICAN POETS (1940)

  The Copy-Text of “Twenty Poems” for CP: Since the printer’s MS and the galley and page proofs are lost, the copy-text for CP is based on the first edition. “Twenty Poems,” Berryman’s first book collection, was published in an anthology by New Directions (Norfolk, Connecticut) on November 19, 1940. Besides Berryman, the poets included are Mary Barnard, Randall Jarrell, W. R. Moses, and George Marion O’Donnell.

  Since eleven poems from 20P appear in TD, with some minor revisions, they are not included in CP. The eleven poems are: “The Statue,” “Desires of Men and Women,” “On the London Train,” “Letter to His Brother,” “Parting as Descent,” “The Disciple,” “World-Telegram,” “Conversation,” “The Return” (the revised title in TD is “The Possessed”), “Winter Landscape,” and “Caravan.”

  VARIANTS: None. The copy-text of the poems from “Twenty Poems” is based on the first printed edition.

  from POEMS (1942)

  The Copy-Text of Poems for CP: The copy-text for CP is based on the first edition. Poems was published September 28, 1942, by James Laughlin’s New Directions (Norfolk, Connecticut) in “The Poet of the Month” series. The author’s galleys and page proofs are lost, but the printer’s MS is in the Houghton Library of Harvard University. The printer’s MS consists of an unsigned, undated, twenty-two-page TS with HW instructions for the printer. The poem “1 September 1939” is missing.

  I have compared the printer’s MS with the published edition of Poems and have noted the variants below. Where the printer’s MS is different from the published edition (in four instances), I assume that Berryman instructed the changes.

  The six poems that appeared in TD, not included in Poems for CP, are: “The Statue,” “At Chinese Checkers,” “1 September 1939,” “A Point of Age,” “The Moon and the Night and the Men,” and “A Poem for Bhain.”

  VARIANTS: Left of the ] is the first edition of Poems accepted for CP; right of the ] is the printer’s MS.

  Dedication: “To Bhain Campbell”

  1911–1940] 1912–1940

  “The Dangerous Year”

  1.26: The car is still upon the road,] The car is still upon the road,

  “River Rouge, 1932”

  Title: 1932] 1933

  1.17: dreamt a dream] had expected

  *Editor’s Note: See the “Editor’s Note” following the Contents for a list of the abbreviations used in CP.

  Acknowledgments

  To acknowledge, merely, the help of friends, colleagues, correspondents, and librarians hardly seems adequate recognition of their contributions to the editing of Collected Poems. An expression of my gratitude comes closer. At the beginning of this project, over three years ago, most of my friends were not fully aware (nor was I) of the complexity involved in editing John Berryman’s collected poems. Simply type the texts (after all, the poems have been published), write an introduction of about five thousand words, and send the publisher the manuscript. So the scenario went. After about two years of indexing, comparing, typing, retyping, and annotating variants—and no clean manuscript in sight—I attempted to explain to them that editing, like a Byzantine icon, is deceptively simple. Whether or not they believed me is still open to question, but they were supportive when I needed them; as it turned out, their encouragement was as important to me as their advice on scholarly and critical matters.

  Kate Donahue (Mrs. John Berryman) and Robert Giroux knew from the beginning what was involved in editing Berryman’s poems. For their forbearance, encouragement, and confidence in me I am deeply grateful. They did all they could to make every document known to them available to me; even though they would have wished to accelerate the process, they seemed to have a sure sense of when to prompt me and when to leave me to Byzantium. John Berryman’s brother, Jefferson, knew as well what the editing involved, and I appreciate very much his genuine enthusiasm for my work.

  Several friends and colleagues kindly criticized my Notes on Texts and Introduction; some advised me on tracing obscure sources of quotes and spellings; others patiently listened to me rehearse almost weekly how I planned to solve the most recent crux. Each in his or her own way sharpened my thinking, polished my expression, and saved me from several blunders. To Eileen Simpson, Richard Kelly, E. M. Halliday, Kathe Davis, Philip and Ellen Siegelman, Patricia Brooks, and Mike Powers—some of whom gave detailed comments on my introduction—I am glad to have the opportunity to thank them publicly. Among my colleagues at St. John’s and College of St. Benedict, I am particularly grateful to Florence Amamoto, Peter Carlton, S. Mara Faulkner, S. Nancy Hynes, and Ozzie Mayers for their close readings of my introduction. Lively conversations with them and other colleagues—Fr. J. P. Earls, Fr. Pat McDarby, Jane Opitz, Cyril O’Regan, Jon Hassler, Annette Atkins, and Bart Sutter—not only allowed me to follow the elbows and stops of my ideas but also gave me great pleasure. For administrative support that faculty at most universities would envy, I am indebted to Fr. Hilary Thimmesh, S. Eva Hooker, Robert Spaeth, and Janet McNew. For financial assistance, I gladly acknowledge the support of the MacPherson Foundation.

  I wish to extend my warm regards to William Meredith and Richard Harteis, who helped me determine some of the history of the publication of Sonnets; to Richard Wilbur for his help on Delusions etc of John Berryman; to James Laughlin for permission to photocopy Berryman’s TS of Poems; and to Richard J. Finneran, Jerome J. McGann, and Carmela Vircillo Franklin for their criticism and counsel on editorial principles and procedures.

  Alan M. Lathrop, Curator of Manuscripts Division, and his assistant, Vivian Newbold, did everything possible to facilitate my work on the large collection of manuscripts and proofs in the John Berryman Papers at the University of Minnesota Libraries. I appreciate their help all the more because they frequently put aside other pressing duties to assist me. I am also indebted to several library staffs for their promptness and efficiency in responding to my queries, particularly Madeleine G. Gosselin, Manuscript Department, The Houghton Library, Harvard University; Timothy D. Murray, Curator of Manuscripts, Washington University in St. Louis; and Bernard R. Crystal, Assistant Librarian for Manuscripts at Columbia University.

  A special word of thanks to Ernest C. Stefanik, Jr., for John Berryman: A Descriptive Bibliography (1974). His meticulously researched work has been invaluable in comparing the embodiments of Berryman’s published texts.

  The editing of an author’s collected works demands not only persistent attention to detail but also staying power. On both counts, I have indeed been fortunate to have Roger Ehresmann as my student assistant. His conscientiousness in proofing typescript and comparing texts and his perseverance through three dispiriting summers stake an important claim to the text of Collected Poems. Others helped in the early, fumbling stages of the editing; I am grateful for the careful work of Tim Herwig, Greg Machacek, and Maya Mannat. Pam Schrader typed and retyped most of the manuscript; her geniality made every stage of the project much more cheerful. Lynn Warshow of Farrar, Straus & Giroux has been a superb editor; her careful scrutiny of the typescript raised
editorial questions I had not considered. Ann Marie Strukel assisted me in proofing the galleys; her dedication and alertness greatly improved the accuracy of the final text. I am, of course, responsible for any errors.

  To Ozzie Mayers, Kathy Paden Thornbury, Herbert Thornbury, my mother (Mae Thornbury), George Connor, Hazel Paden, and Richard Kelly (“the lovely friends,” as Henry says), I wish to say how grateful I am for your interest, kindness, and friendship. One of the pleasures of slowly accumulating the completed pages of the manuscript for Collected Poems has been my teenage daughters’ amazement—“awesome” is the current word—at the number of pages it finally came to; it did not matter that John Berryman had written the poems; it did not matter that I was their temporary custodian. I would like to pay my own tribute to my daughters Kendra and Clare. Berryman’s poems “terrify & comfort”; they cajole and make you laugh; they brood and they celebrate. His poems belong as much to your generation as they do to his and to my own.

  Index of Titles and First Lines

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  A ‘broken heart’ . . but can a heart break, now?

  A Cambridge friend put in,—one whom I used

  A Huddle of Need

  A hurdle of water, and O these waters are cold

  A murmuration of the shallow, Crane

  A penny, pity, for the runaway ass!

  A Poem for Bhain

  A Point of Age

  A Prayer After All

  A Prayer for the Self

  A Professor’s Song

  A red moon hung above the pines that night

  A sort of anxiousness crystal in crystal has

  A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece

  A sullen brook hardly would satisfy

  A Sympathy, A Welcome

  A thing O say a sixteenth of an inch

  A tired banana & an empty mind

  A tongue there is wags, down in the dark wood O

  A Usual Prayer

  A wasp skims nearby up the bright warm air

  A Winter-Piece to a Friend Away

  According to Thy will: That this day only

  Across the frontiers of the helpless world

  After a little I could not have told

  After a Stoic, a Peripatetic, a Pythagorean

  Again—but other faces bend with mine

  Age, and the deaths, and the ghosts

  Ah! so very slowly

  Ah when you drift hover before you kiss

  Ai, they all pass in front of me those girls!

  All I did wrong, all the Grand Guignol years

  All we were going strong last night this time

  Although the relatives in the summer house

  American Lights, Seen From Off Abroad

  Amid the doctors in the Temple at twelve, between

  Amos

  Amplitude,—voltage,—the one friend calls for the one

  An evening faultless interval when

  Ancestor

  And does the old wound shudder open? Shall

  And now you be my guest

  And Plough-month peters out . . its thermal power

  ‘and something that … that is theirs—no longer ours’

  Anomalous I linger, and ignore

  Another old friend, long afterward

  Antitheses

  Are we? You murmur ‘not’. What of the night-

  As usual I’m up before the sun

  Astronomies and slangs to find you, dear

  At Chinese Checkers

  At twenty-five a man is on his way

  Audacities and fêtes of the drunken weeks!

  Aware to the dry throat of the wide hell in the world

  Away

  Back

  Because I’d seen you not believe your lover

  Beethoven Triumphant

  Began with swirling, blind, unstilled oh still

  Bell to sore knees vestigial crowds, let crush

  Bitter upon conviction

  Blue go up & blue go down

  Boston Common

  Boy twenty-one, in Donne, shied like a blow

  bulks where the barley blew, time out of mind

  Cadenza on Garnette

  Canto Amor

  Caravan

  Cedars and the westward sun

  Ceremony and Vision

  Certainty Before Lunch

  Christian to Try: ‘I am so coxed in it’

  Cloud and Flame

  ‘Cold cold cold of a special night’

  College of cocktails, a few gentlemen

  Communist

  Compline

  Conversation

  Crisis

  Crouched on a ridge sloping to where you pour

  Damn You, Jim D., You Woke Me Up

  Damned

  Damned. Lost & damned. And I find I’m pregnant

  Dante’s Tomb

  Darling I wait O in my upstairs box

  Dawdling into glory

  Death Ballad

  Defensio in Extremis

  Demand me again what Kafka’s riddles mean

  Desire Is a World by Night

  Desires of Men and Women

  Despair

  Despite the lonesome look

  Dog-tired, suisired, will now my body down

  Dooms menace from tumults. Who’s immune

  Down & Back

  Dream in a dream the heavy soul somewhere

  Drugs Alcohol Little Sister

  Drunks

  Ecce Homo

  Edgy, perhaps. Not on the point of bursting-forth

  Eleven Addresses to the Lord

  Epilogue

  Eve & her envy roving slammed me down

  Exasperated, worn, you conjure a mansion

  Faith like the warrior ant swarming, enslaving

  Fall and rise of her midriff bells. I watch

  Fare Well

  Farewell to Miles

  Father, Father, I am overwhelmed

  Fearful I peer upon the mountain path

  Feel for your bad fall how could I fail

  Felled in my tracks by your tremendous horse

  First Night at Sea

  For all his vehemence & hydraulic opinions

  For that free Grace bringing us past great risks

  For three insane things evil, and for four

  For you am I collared to quit my dear

  For you an idyl, was it not, so far

  Formal Elegy

  Four oval shadows, paired, ringed each by sun

  Free! While in the cathedral at Seville

  Frequently when the night

  Freshman Blues

  Friendless

  Friendless in Clare, except Brian Boydell

  From Pharos I have seen her white

  Germanicus leapt upon the wild lion in Smyrna

  Gislebertus’ Eve

  Good evening. At the feet of the king, my Lord

  Grandfather, sleepless in a room upstairs

  Great citadels whereon the gold sun falls

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

  He died in December. He must descend

  He made, a thousand years ago, a-many songs

  He Resigns

  He was reading late, at Richard’s, down in Maine

  Heaven

  Hello

  Hello there, Biscuit! You’re a better-looking broad

  Henry by Night

  Henry sats in de plane & was gay

  Henry’s nocturnal habits were the terror of his women

  Henry’s Understanding

  Her & It

  Here too you came and sat a time once, drinking

  High noon has me pitchblack, so in hope out

  Holy, & holy. The damned are said to say

  Holy, as I suppose I dare to cal
l you

  Homage to Mistress Bradstreet

  Hospital racket, nurses’ iron smiles

  How could you be so happy, now some thousand years

  ‘How Do You Do, Dr Berryman, Sir?’

  How far upon these songs with my strict wrist

  How shall I do, to pass the weary time

  How shall I sing, western & dry & thin

  I am interested alone in making ready

  I am the same yes as you others, only

  I break my pace now for a sonic boom

  ‘I couldn’t leave you’ you confessed next day

  I dare interpret: Adonai of rescue

  ‘I didn’t see anyone else, I just saw Lise’

  I don’t know what the hell happened all that summer

  I don’t show my work to anybody, I am quite alone

  I dreamt he drove me back to the asylum

  I expect you from the North. The path winds in

  I feel congruity, feel colleagueship

  I fell in love with a girl

  I hardly slept across the North Atlantic

  ‘I Know’

  I lift—lift you five States away your glass

  I owe you, do I not, a roofer: though

  I put those things there.—See them burn

  I really believe He’s here all over this room

  I remind myself at that time of Plato’s uterus

  I said: Mighty men have encamped against me

  I say I laid siege—you enchanted me

  I thought I’d say a thing to please myself

  I told a lie once in a verse. I said

  I told him: The time has come, I must be gone (1)

  I told him: The time has come, I must be gone (2)

  I tore it open, by one end, & found

  I was out of your Church for 43 years, my Dear

  I wished, all the mild days of middle March

  I wondered about their things. Were they large or small?

  I wondered ever too what my fate would be

  I would at this late hour as little as may be

  I’m at a table with Canadians

  I’ve found out why, that day, that suicide

  I’ve met your friend at last, your violent friend

  ‘If I had said out passions as they were’

  If I say Thy name, art Thou there? It may be so

  ‘If long enough I sit here, she, she’ll pass’