JOHN BERRYMAN 1914-1972

John Berryman is one of my favorite poets. His rambling-tambling style twists and screws the ways you perceive the poetry in a most elaborate way. He was talking about his life in his poetry, he tried to sort out his emotions by the power of verse - and you can feel its visceral wrecking intensity...

There was an anniversary of his suicide on January 7.  45 years ago he jumped off the Washington Avenue Bridge, some say he was waving to onlookers on his way down. Happens.

Since it's pointless to explain why he did it - I offer you a suiting alternative in a form of a song by The Hold Steady. "Stuck Between Stations" loosily retells Berryman's mindset prior to the event.

Here's a glimpses of his interview for BBC in 1967. He's a bit too much drunk in it but nevertheless brilliant.

***

With all that I dare you to read his "Eleven addresses to the Lord":

1

Master of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake,

inimitable contriver,

endower of Earth so gorgeous & different from the boring Moon,

thank you for such as it is my gift.

I have made up a morning prayer to you

containing with precision everything that most matters.

'According to Thy will' the thing begins.

It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence.

You have come to my rescue again & again

in my impassable, sometimes despairing years.

You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves

and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning.

Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs:

how can I 'love' you?

I only as far as gratitude & awe

confidently & absolutely go.

I have no idea whether we live again.

It doesn't seem likely

from either the scientific or the philosophical point of view

but certainly all things are possible to you,

and I believe as fixedly in the Resurrection-appearances to Peter & to Paul

as I believe I sit in this blue chair.

Only that may have been a special case

to establish their initiatory faith.

Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement.

May I stand until death forever at attention

for any your least instruction or enlightenment.

I even feel sure you will assist me again, Master of insight & beauty.

2

Holy, as I suppose I dare to call you

without pretending to know anything about you

but infinite capacity everywhere & always

& in particular certain goodness to me.

Yours is the crumpling, to my sister-in-law terrifying thunder,

yours the candelabra buds sticky in Spring,

Christ's mercy,

the gloomy wisdom of godless Freud:

yours the lost souls in ill-attended wards,

those agonized thro' the world

It this instant of time, all evil men,

Belsen, Omaha Beach,-

incomprehensible to man your ways.

May be the Devil after all exists.

'I don't try to reconcile anything' said the poet at eighty,

'This is a damned strange world.'

Man is ruining the pleasant earth & man.

What at last, my Lord, will you allow?

Postpone till after my children's deaths your doom

if it be thy ineffable, inevitable will.

I say 'Thy kingdom come', it means nothing to me.

Hast Thou prepared astonishments for man?

One sudden Coming? Many so believe.

So not, without knowing anything, do I.

3

Sole watchman of the flying stars, guard me

against my flicker of impulse lust: teach me

to see them as sisters & daughters. Sustain

my grand endeavours: husbandship & crafting.

Forsake me not when my wild hours come;

grant me sleep nightly, grace soften my dreams;

achieve in me patience till the thing be done,

a careful view of my achievement come.

Make me from time to time the gift of the shoulder.

When all hurt nerves whine shut away the whiskey.

Empty my heart toward Thee.

Let me pace without fear the common path of death.

Cross am I sometimes with my little daughter:

fill her eyes with tears. Forgive me, Lord.

Unite my various soul,

sole watchman of the wide & single stars.

4

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

Thou art not absent-minded, as I am.

I am so much so I had to give up driving.

You attend, I feel, to the matters of man.

Across the ages certain blessings swarm,

horrors accumulate, the best men fail:

Socrates, Lincoln, Christ mysterious.

Who can search Thee out?

except Isaiah & Pascal, who saw.

I dare not ask that vision, though a piece of it

at last in crisis was vouchsafed me.

I altered then for good, to become yours.

Caretaker! take care, for we run in straits.

Daily, by night, we walk naked to storm,

some threat of wholesale loss, to ruinous fear.

Gift us with long cloaks & adrenalin.

Who haunt the avenues of Angkor Wat

recalling all that prayer, that glory dispersed,

haunt me at the corner of Fifth & Hennepin.

Shield & fresh fountain! Manifester! Even mine.

5

Holy, & holy. The damned are said to say

'We never thought we would come into this place.'

I'm fairly clear, my Friend, there's no such place

ordained for inappropriate & evil man.

Surely they fall dull, & forget. We too,

the more or less just, I feel fall asleep

dreamless forever while the worlds hurl out.

Rest may be your ultimate gift.

Rest or transfiguration! come & come

whenever Thou wilt. My daughter & my son

fend will without me, when my work is done

in Your opinion.

Strengthen my widow, let her dream on me

thro' tranquil hours less & down to less.

Abrupt elsewhere her heart, I sharply hope.

I leave her in wise Hands.

6

Under new management, Your Majesty:

Thine. I have solo'd mine since childhood, since

my father's suicide when I was twelve

blew out my most bright candle faith, and look at me.

I served at Mass six dawns a week from five,

adoring Father Boniface & you,

memorizing the Latin he explained.

Mostly we worked alone. One or two women.

Then my poor father frantic. Confusions & afflictions

followed my days. Wives left me.

Bankrupt I closed my doors. You pierced the roof

twice & again. Finally you opened my eyes.

My double nature fused in that point of time

three weeks ago day before yesterday.

Now, brooding thro' a history of the early Church,

I identify with everybody, even the heresiarchs.

 7

After a Stoic, a Peripatetic, a Pythagorean,

Justin Martyr studied the words of the Saviour,

finding them short, precise, terrible, & full of refreshment.

I am tickled to learn this.

Let one day desolate Sherry, fair, thin, tall,

at 29 today her life the Sahara Desert,

who has never once enjoyed a significant relation,

so find His lightning words.

A Prayer for the Self

Who am I worthless that You spent such pains

and take may pains again?

I do not understand; but I believe.

Jonquils respond with wit to the teasing breeze.

Induct me down my secrets. Stiffen this heart

to stand their horrifying cries, O cushion

the first the second shocks, will to a halt

in mid-air there demons who would be at me.

May fade before, sweet morning on sweet morning,

I wake my dreams, my fan-mail go astray,

and do me little goods I have not thought of,

ingenious & beneficial Father.

Ease in their passing my beloved friends,

all others too I have cared for in a travelling life,

anyone anywhere indeed. Lift up

sober toward truth a scared self-estimate.

9

Surprise me on some ordinary day

with a blessing gratuitous. Even I've done good

beyond their expectations. What count we then

upon Your bounty?

Interminable: an old theologian

asserts that even to say You exist is misleading.

Uh-huh. I buy that Second-century fellow.

I press his withered glorifying hand.

You certainly do not as I exist,

impersonating as well the meteorite

& flaring in your sun your waterfall

or blind in caves pallid fishes.

Bear in mind me, Who have forgotten nothing,

& Who continues. I may not foreknow

& fail much to remember. You sustain

imperial desuetudes, at the kerb a widow.

10

Fearful I peer upon the mountain path

where once Your shadow passed, Limner of the clouds

up their phantastic guesses. I am afraid,

I never until now confessed.

I fell back in love with you, Father, for two reasons:

You were good to me, & a delicious author,

rational & passionate. Come on me again,

as twice you came to Azarias & Misael.

President of the brethren, our mild assemblies

inspire, & bother the priest not to be dull;

keep us week-long in order; love my children,

my mother far & ill, far brother, my spouse.

Oil all my turbulence as at Thy dictation

I sweat out my wayward works.

Father Hopkins said the only true literary critic is Christ.

Let me lie down exhausted, content with that.

11

Germanicus leapt upon the wild lion in Smyrna,

wishing to pass quickly from a lawless life.

The crowd shook the stadium.

The proconsul marvelled.

'Eighty & six years have I been his servant,

and he has done me no harm.

How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?'

Polycarp, John's pupil, facing the fire.

Make too me acceptable at the end of time

in my degree, which then Thou wilt award.

Cancer, senility, mania,

I pray I may be ready with my witness.