John Berryman

:For the English recipient of the Victoria Cross, see John Berryman (VC)

Writers' Workshop

While Berryman was on the faculty of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, W. D. Snodgrass, the original confessional poet, was one of the members of his class. "I have been very fortunate twice in my career as a student of poetry," William Dickey wrote in Ed Dinger's Seems Like Old Times, "first to have been at Reed College as an undergraduate with Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch, second to have been in John Berryman's extraordinary and intense poetry workshop with W. D. Snodgrass, Donald Justice, Philip Levine, Paul Petrie, Robert Dana, Constance Urdang, Jane Cooper, Donald Finkel, Henri Coulette—the list continues beyond the capacity of my memory, but it was a course I approached with rapture and fear, owing in part to Berryman's sometimes jagged abruptness, as when, having warned me beforehand that he was going to exhibit the profound mortality of one of my works, he held it out at arm's length in the class, looked at it with loathing, and said, 'Now, what are we to say about this ridiculous poem?'".{{Inote|Dinger p. 23|Dinger23}}

Related Topics:
University of Iowa Writers' Workshop - W. D. Snodgrass - William Dickey - Ed Dinger - Reed College - Gary Snyder - Philip Whalen - Lew Welch - Donald Justice - Philip Levine - Paul Petrie - Robert Dana - Constance Urdang - Jane Cooper - Donald Finkel - Henri Coulette

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"I remember a day in the old tin barracks that served as our classroom down by the river, when John Berryman scribbled some lines of mine on the blackboard," Robert Dana added. "'Dana!' he shouted across two rows of chairs, 'Do you know what that is?' He rapidly marked the scansion. 'Metrical chaos! that's what that is! Metrical chaos!'" But chaos was a large and natural part of Berryman's own life, including his poetry:

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"It was that kind of blow-torch approach that cut Berryman's class, in two weeks, from about 40 to thirteen." Dana continued. "I like to think of us now as 'The Lucky Thirteen,' but we were crazy too. Crazy with the kind of toughness it took to hang in there against John's special mix of crankiness, brilliance, and cruelty. And we were brash in our own ways.

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"Phil Levine punched Berryman in the eye one night, breaking a pair of glasses and establishing a life-long friendship." These kinds of personal relationships were always of great importance to Berryman. It is a question whether he influenced his students more than they influenced him.

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On the other hand, the U.K. poet and contemporary of W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, did not believe that this sort of hot-house atmosphere was necessarily good for poets. Spender has written, "The bad—or perhaps I should say the tragic—result of campus patronage is the depressing effect it sometimes has on major talents. I think that the tragic and near-suicidal deaths of Randall Jarrell, Theodore Roethke and John Berryman are not unconnected with their being in positions where, although they were admired, they were very isolated."{{Inote|Spender p. 286|Spender286}}

Related Topics:
W. H. Auden - Stephen Spender - Randall Jarrell - Theodore Roethke

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