Conversations with John Berryman

The poetry of John Berryman (1914-1972) is primarily concerned with the self in response to the rapid social political sexual racial and technological transformations of the twentieth century and their impact on the psyche and spirit both individual and collective. He was just as likely to find inspiration in his local newspaper as he was from the poetry of Hopkins or Milton. In fact in contrast to the popular perception of Berryman drunkenly composing strange dreamlike abstract esoteric poems Berryman was intensely aware of craft. His best work routinely utilizes a variety of rhetorical styles shifting effortlessly from the lyric to the prosaic. <p/> For Berryman poetry was nothing less than a vocation a mission and a way of life. Though he desired fame he acknowledged its relative unimportance when he stated that the important thing is that your work is something no one else can do. As a result Berryman very rarely granted interviews--I teach and I write he explained I'm not copy--yet when he did the results were always captivating. Collected in Conversations with John Berryman are all of Berryman's major interviews personality pieces profiles and local interest items where interviewers attempt to unravel him as both Berryman and his interlocutors struggle to find value in poetry in a fallen world.