JOHN BERRYMAN ~

 

"MAN?  BEWILDERED, HENRY STARED AT

THE WORLD OPPOSITE"

Man?  Bewildered, Henry stared at the world opposite

and took up Intractable Problem: Am I part of it?

—(Yeah, man!)

— There's all that zealous; whereas he lean back.

There's all that competent; whereas he lack

a minimal plan.

Let's think of his nature as a kind of mist,

which cares through, and has been known to insist,

and frequent' does hurt,

and caves in, and recovers to open air.

There are the common opinions he declare

in the rapid of his 'art.

Oh his 'art thrashes.  It will come to nix.

In time, in time, Henry will be towed away

as having counter-parked.

Devil a love will bail him from that fix.

Dispersing mist before the heat of day

in a corner of one galaxy.

_______________________________

John Berryman

Only Sing

152 Uncollected Dream Songs

Farrar, Straus, Giroux 2025

JOHN BERRYMAN ~

 

R E A D      M E

LARRY EIGNER ~

"Briggflatts is a poem: it needs no explanation" 

B  A  S  I   L         B  U  N  T  I  N  G

I enjoy any book by or about

L A R R Y      E I G N E R

including by academics going on & on

in the long run it seems where

the outsiders —

and Eigner was one,

like Philip Whalen —

will be rescued and petted

by the academic Red Cross

but perhaps keep in mind

what John Berryman

once wrote to Ezra Pound 

then residing in St. Elizabeth's Hospital

far from the academy,

"Thirty years ago the

("intellectual") public knew nothing,

at present it is only too damned

apparently familiar with every-

thing — among others, with all

of you. . . There is a whole school

of now-academic criticism

to be broken down also (Ransom,

Winters Tate Blackmur Warren), which I

am convinced is stifling talent."

John Berryman 1947

________________

New Mexico, 2020

"Let the incidents and images take care of themselves"

B  A  S  I   L         B  U  N  T  I  N  G