John Berryman

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John Berryman (birth name: John Allyn Smith ) (born October 25, 1914 in McAlester , Oklahoma , † January 7, 1972 in Minneapolis , Minnesota ) was an American university professor and poet who won the Bollingen Prize in Poetry , the National Book Award and received the Pulitzer Prize . Among other things, he is assigned to the group of Confessional Poets .

Life

In 1931 Berryman, who lost his birth father to suicide in 1926 and took the family name of his stepfather, made his first suicide attempt . After attending school, he studied with Robert Lax first at Columbia University and then for two years at Clare College at the University of Cambridge .

Berryman, who was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic society , was the poetry editor of the left-wing weekly The Nation , the oldest weekly newspaper in the United States .

He made his literary debut in 1942 with the publication of the anthology Poems and, following his second volume of poetry, The Dispossessed (1948), received a Guggenheim grant for the first time in 1952 . He also received great recognition for a biography about the writer Stephen Crane , published in 1950 under the title Stephen Crane. A critical biography was published.

After his major, by the first poet of New England Anne Bradstreet inspired poetry book Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1956; dt. Homage to Mistress Bradstreet , translated by Gertrude Clorius swing Bell with an afterword by Walter Hasenclever ) he received for his anthology 77 Dream Songs (1964) the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for 1965. During this time his poems were introduced to the British public by the literary critic of The Observer Al Alvarez .

On February 28, 1966, he was among many other important poets such as Robert Lowell , Richard Wilbur , Stanley Kunitz and Robert Penn Warren to the participants in a memorial service at Yale University for Randall Jarrell .

After the publication of the volume of poetry Berryman's Sonnets (1967) he was again awarded a Guggenheim grant, while the anthology His Toy, His Dream, His Rest , published in 1968, received the National Book Award in the poetry category in 1969.

For the volume of poetry published afterwards, The Dream Songs (1969), he received the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1969 alongside Karl Shapiro . Most recently he published not only another anthology, Love & Fame (1970), but also his memoirs in 1971 under the title Recovery .

In addition to his writing activities, he was not only a lecturer at the University of Washington and the University of Cincinnati , but also a professor at Wayne State University , Harvard University , the University of California at Berkeley and Brown University . Most recently he was professor of humanities at the University of Minnesota from 1955 until his death . One of the students in one of his literary workshops was William Dickey .

On January 7, 1972, Berryman, who suffered from epilepsy , depression , alcohol and nicotine addiction, committed suicide by jumping off the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis .

Memberships

In 1965 Berryman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1967 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Background literature

  • J. Haffenden: John Berryman . Routledge, Kegan & Paul, Boston, Mass. 1982, ISBN 0-7100-9216-4 .
  • Lewis Hyde : Alcohol and Poetry. John Berryman and the booze talking . New edition Dallas Institute, Dallas, Tx. 1986, ISBN 0-911005-10-2 ( essays ).
  • Paul Mariani: Dream song: the life of John Berryman , San Antonio: Trinity University Press, [2016], ISBN 978-1-59534-766-4

Web links and sources

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members: John Berryman. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 16, 2019 .
  2. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Book of Members ( PDF ). Retrieved April 2, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Berryman, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, John Allyn (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American poet and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH McAlester , Oklahoma
DATE OF DEATH 7th January 1972
Place of death Minneapolis , Minnesota