In
1967, the poet John Berryman - already a Pulitzer Prize winner for his 77 Dream Songs - was interviewed by
the English critic A. Alvarez. The interview, which ran over the course of
three days, was filmed for the BBC at a pub, Ryan's Beggars Bush, in
Ballsbridge, Dublin, and it is from this footage that the clips of Berryman
reading his Dream Songs - #14 and #29 - which now circulate on YouTube are
drawn.
In so far as there is an image of Berryman that exists in the public
imagination, these clips are its embodiment: the poet's beard is fulsome
and his spectacles are large, black, and thickly-framed; he is wearing what
might be a shoulder-padded overcoat. Berryman's delivery is stilted, almost
unnervingly so: his speech is alternately halting and rushed; he gestures extravagantly;
his head bobs and weaves. Berryman "was drunk during filming, as the
attentive viewer may notice," runs the quippy description under the
video, and sure, he was probably that too. More than drunk, though, he
looks pained. Each word seems to come from a great distance, to emerge only
after a violent struggle.
Read on...
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