John Berryman è stato una figura chiave della poesia americana nella seconda metà del XX secolo. Le sue opere, in particolare il ciclo "The Dream Songs", sono note per la loro giocosità, arguzia e morbosità. La produzione di Berryman è spesso associata alla cosiddetta poesia confessionale, sebbene lui stesso rifiutasse tale definizione. Il suo stile unico e i suoi temi provocatori hanno influenzato molti poeti successivi.
John Berryman was an energetic correspondent. Assembled here for the first time, his letters tell of generosity, ambition, and struggle. He has encouraging words for fellow poets and younger writers and is deeply engaged in literary culture. But also visible are the struggles of a working artist grappling with alcoholism and depression.
This volume brings together all of Berryman's poetry, except for his epic The Dream Songs, ranging from his earliest unpublished poem (1934) to those written in the last months of his life (1972). A definitive edition of one of America's most distinguished poets.
This edition combines The Dream Songs, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1965, and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1969 and contains all 385 songs. Of The Dream Songs, A. Alvarez wrote in The Observer, "A major achievement. He has written an elegy on his brilliant generation and, in the process, he has also written an elegy on himself."The Dream Songs are eighteen-line poems in three stanzas. Each individual poem is lyric and organized around an emotion provoked by an everyday event. The tone of the poems is less surreal than associational or intoxicated. The principal character of the song cycle is Henry, who is both the narrator of the poems and referred to by the narrator in the poems.
This Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of poems is celebrated for its raw intensity and masterful craftsmanship. With themes that continue to resonate, the work challenges conventions and evokes powerful emotions, leaving an enduring impact on readers long after its initial release. Its bold exploration of complex subjects ensures that it remains both shocking and thought-provoking decades later.
Poet John Berryman's foundational novel of addiction and recovery was writtenjust before his 1972 suicide and is a powerful portrayal of the protagonist'seternally indefinite attempts to free himself from the grip of addiction.
Here is a juxtaposition of the personal and inter-communal dynamics focussed on the West African experience during the pivotal decade of the 1960s, when National Independence demanded a reflexion on the definition of the new states, and how external factors have borne heavily upon their past, present and future. The author blends his experience of study and travel in the region, acknowledging his debt to the pioneering spirit of the School of Oriental and African Studies who facilitated the enterprise, with an analysis of the challenges the new entities have faced, and how they have fared, nationally and globally, in the light of Slavery, Colonialism and Black Lives Matter.
