147. John Berryman - The Dream Songs

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The guest for this episode is novelist and memoirist Susie Boyt (My Judy Garland Life, Loved and Missed). The book Susie has chosen for discussion is The Dream Songs (1969) by John Berryman, the publication of which briefly made its author the most famous poet in America but also, unfortunately, hastened his decline and ruin. But the work shines on.

Also in this episode Andy is struck by the contemporary resonance of Vivian Gornick's The Romance of American Communism while John drinks in Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub edited by David Knight and Cristina Monteiro.

Please note, this episode contains references to suicide.

Books mentioned:

John Berryman - The Dream Songs; 77 Dream Songs; Collected Poems; Poems Selected by Michael Hoffman; Love & Fame
Susie Boyt - My Judy Garland Life; Loved and Missed; Henry James - The Turn of the Screw & Other Ghost Stories (ed)
Vivian Gornick - The Romance of American Communism
David Knight & Cristina Monteiro (eds) - Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub
Eileen Simpson - Poets in their Youth

Other links:

‘Life, friends, is boring...’ Dream Song 14, recorded in Dublin, 1967
John Berryman reading at the Guggenheim Museum, 1963
Berryman reading various Dream Songs from the LP Treasury of 100 Modern American Poets
’There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart...’ Dream Song 29, recorded in Dublin, 1967
John Berryman reads from The Dream Songs at the University of Iowa, 1968, live recording bootlegged from the audience
I Don't Think I Will Sing Any More Just Now - PBS documentary, 1974