Meet the Author: John Berryman 1914–1972

Johns father committed suicide when John was 11 years old, right out side his window. John was a drug addiction and often abused alcohol He was married 3 times and had affairs with 2 of them

He had a change in religious belief, from a transcendent god to a god that cared for each individual fate of human beings and who even interceded for them. John later committed suicide by jumping off the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota

John was a scholar, professor, and a poet. He is best known for “The Dream Songs” which consists of 385 sequential personal poems. Through this he created a style and form that allowed him to accommodate a vast range of material while also expressing emotion. The dream songs was johns way to cope with his fathers death.

His poems in “The Dream Song” creates allusion to past and present and to many literary figures. His poems also include slangy diction and nervous, fractured syntax. Because of this John won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

Dream Song 14 By John BerrymanJohn Berryman Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as achilles, who loves people and valiant art, which bores me. And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag and somehow a dog has taken itself & its tail considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag.

Dream Song 14 By John BerrymanJohn Berryman Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, you bore me literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as achilles, who loves people and valiant art, which bores me. And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag and somehow a dog has taken itself & its tail considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag. Rhyme Scheme: There is very little to if any rhyme in the poem 3 Stanzas 6 lines per stanza 18 lines total Imagery: There is some imagery in this poem I think the author put imagery in the poem to put these little images inside the readers head.

Dream Song 14 By John BerrymanJohn Berryman Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as Achilles, who loves people and valiant art, which bores me. And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag and somehow a dog has taken itself & its tail considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag. Inner resources: a resource provided by the mind or ones capabilities Plights: A dangerous or difficult unfortunate situation Gripes: complaint or grumble about something or someone Greek hero of the Trojan War Tranquil : Happy, peaceful, calm

Henry Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as Achilles, Henry is the speaker of the poem, but John Berryman is also the speaker. Henry is John’s alternate ego. In the dream song book, Henry is the main character, a concoction of Berryman’s own past. Henry gives utterance to a thousand shades of thought and feeling, of hesitations and inklings— the most intimate stuff of the inner voice—but he does this via verbal theatrics. He is constantly disputing himself, juggling his first, second, and third persons, and the result reads almost like an improvised vaudeville act. Henry’s entanglement with language becomes the central drama of the sequence in many of the dream songs.

“After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn,” “My mother told me as a boy (repeatingly)” But I don’t waaaannnn nnaaaa!!!!!! !!!!! tranquil hills

Literal meaning The literal Meaning of the poem is

Figurative meaning The poems figurative meaning is that the speaker who is the author and his alternate writing ego, have become bored with one another. And when John finds something that dosen’t bore him (the dog) it ends up leaving him

The Authors Purpose and the Theme The authors purpose was to inform us about all the things that bored him in his life. The author apparently got bored very quickly with things and because of this he tried to switch things up and that didn’t always work. So when he found something that entertained him it ended up leaving him all alone. Now if it was for the better or worse is for you to decide. The Theme of the poem is: That nothing good ever lasts in this cruel world of ours.