John Berryman: Life, Friends, is Boring.

[TommyTomato93]

@Weed69TacoBell i'm eighteen, not a lonely middle-aged man. if you're into that bleak misanthropic type of poetry, then put down berryman and read larkin. that's all i'm going to say. not here to argue.

[TommyTomato93]

@Weed69TacoBell dude, your name is "Weed69TacoBell." somehow that doesn't really demonstrate that you have a great extent of knowledge yourself. i'm guessing you're a 20-something-year-old unambitious pseudo-intellectual who likes to read bad poets like berryman and bukowski and pretend that you know something about literature when you really don't.

[fasolplanetarium]

@TommyTomato93 ad hominem lamer

[lejluu]

2:50 - Catjiiing! :)

[TommyTomato93]

this guy was a fucking weirdo. people only read him because they're fascinated by artists who committed suicide. same goes with sylvia plath.

[shrinkingmaps]

Great video except for the annoying high-pitch tone in the background throughout.

[CreamedCheesed]

I always defend youtube when people say ‘oh, it’s just a bunch of videos of people falling over and such’ because if it wasn’t for YT, I wouldn’t have found out about John Berryman or The Dream Songs, of which I am reading now

[swindle1989]

That beard....

[hirls7]

Does anybody know where this footage came from and if so if there's any more?

[colonelwits]

i want to see this unedited. ...o! the loss of footage of the great poets! ...we make due, and we love it.

[serpikris]

talking about literature after a couple of screwdrivers is always fun

[shitdog1234]

drunk in the packet-boat

[marmas58ink]

4:09 = Poem... I remember a good many of those lines even though it's been about 25 years since I last checked out Dream Songs, (2nd floor of my college library...). The lines about bored and inner resources I've remembered all this while... though, it turns out, they've altered some over time. And that last line... he doesn't give it the right reading I must say.

[twohawksfucking]

I love the periodic sounding of a cash register in the background! A friend of mine, Bill Heyen, who knew Berryman said he was the only genius he has ever met.

I love: "Poets don't get very much fan mail..." Some more than others, I'm guessing.

[rlathbury]

John Berryman is a wonderful poet, a most highly talented man. Who knows whether he would have been better without all the booze. This is painful to watch.

[herrkamphenkel]

If art is suffering,

and art is a way to communicate life,

then suffering is life.

If life is boring,

and art is a way to communicate life,

than art is boring (unless is isn't).

If none is greater than God

and Satan is greater than none,

then Satan is Greater than God.

[realslimfrankie]

im an alcoholic and so are all my friends and it works just fine. people drink because this type of living "ain't pretty to watch"

[JasonHi]

It's a shame a lot of the comments glamorize his self-destruction. I wonder how cool Kate Berryman thought it was. Or his young daughter.

He was a fine and brilliant man. A poet for the ages. Unfortunately, a crippling addiction and childhood trauma of the first order robbed American literature of one of its most unique voices. Thankfully, the work remains. We should celebrate that and not shovel romance on his grave. The kind of drinking he did is not pretty to watch.

[herrkamphenkel]

His poetry is mainly diluted reflections of his own suffering. His addiction and depression may have killed him, but it also inspired his work. His suffering gave him a voice - it didn't take it. What, do you come up with hundreds of Dream Songs about happiness? Does happiness touch the soul? Is it universal? Happiness? Health? A "full" life of stuffing a fat face full of conventional entertainment? No. Suffering = art and this man was a master communicater of that - a master sufferer.

[JakSacul]

@herrkamphenkel

This is why I don't like art. People like you who think art has to be all gloom and doom.

[herrkamphenkel]

@JakSacul Impressive - you may be the only human being ever to dislike every medium of art - and for a reason as foolish as how other people see it! I'd pity you, but that'd be a hell of a waste of emotion. Well, art won't miss a supporter/practitioner with as little depth of soul as you, and that I couldn't care less about what you think of me. No one's going to play the harp when you die, and the sooner that day comes the sooner someone can make a "gloom and doom" poem about it.

[kifn2]

@JakSacul The sensibility that this particular artist is evoking is what we are moving away from in 2010. If not "gloom and doom" necessarily then parody and irony. You're not alone in being sick of it. In his day it was new and seemed to be saying something, but I think we're finding out that it doesn't have anything to say in itself.

[jazzmanchgo]

@kifn2 I wish I could agree that we're moving away from "parody and irony" in today's literary/cultural world. Seems to me that postmodernist "ironic detachment" (which others call "snarkiness") is the virtual coin of the realm in the arts (if not in the overall culture) today.

I don't find Berryman's irony to be "detachment" -- I find it to be immolation and then horrified recoiling. Major difference from the current aesthetic, in my opinion.

[cancontrl]

@herrkamphenkel that is a pretty ignorant statement.

[molitovguardian]

@cancontrl Nice work, way to call someone ignorant on youtube. really cool.

[cancontrl]

@molitovguardian Nice work, way to let someone know what they said on youtube. really cool.

[molitovguardian]

@cancontrl Nice work, way to take the format for someone's criticism of you & make it self-serving. really clever.

[cancontrl]

@molitovguardian Nice work, way to take the format of baseless criticism & make it self-serving. really unique. (on the other hand, this routine is amusing.)

[molitovguardian]

@cancontrl Nice work, way to mention that this routine is amusing & act boarderline friendly. really mature.

[MrHeslopian]

I think I am obsessed with John Berryman. Such a strange and talented man...

[moudiwort]

i am considering seriously to switch from beer to bourbon

[Poemsapennyeach]

Fascinating...

[MeNombreEsChris]

This man is a pure genius. It's awful he received hostile mail after injecting his life and soul into his works.

[nydude6009]

hahaha toasted off his ass. berryman's a gangsta

[wuz352]

This video, in all trueness, is not boring.

[trevorduvall]

Thus the very reason I have no friends and no life at all really, just an existence....

[dirtycelinefrenchman]

i love you

[wheelerrappj]

Thank you, Mr. Berryman, for having existed.

[HIpHugger19]

Wow, I've read that song so many times before. Never knew there was video of it.

[LichtungNym]

Love is boring as well.

[mikstruber]

by W.S. Merwin, poet - excerpt from "Berryman"

I had hardly begun to read

I asked how can you ever be sure

that what you write is really

any good at all and he said you can't

you can't you can never be sure

you die without knowing

whether anything you wrote was any good

if you have to be sure don't write

[1zz01]

he was the shit too bad he jumped off a bridge

[leadbelly39]

hahahahahaha

tellin it like it is

[blahco4]

A friend of mine asked me if possibly Heath Ledger saw this video and based the personality of the Joker in the Dark Knight on this guy...I mean...watch Dark Knight and then watch this video

[POET444]

am interested in watergate here....these where big timres ...he's just trying to explain...drunk, yeah

[cfotoole]

Is Berryman drunk here, or is that just how he talked?

[gardenvarietypenis]

clearly it is how he talked, but i think he may be hopped up on goofballs or coffee, too.

[trevorduvall]

What are goofballs?

[cfotoole]

He's drunk.

[gardenvarietypenis]

ohhhh, of course, berryman's coffee is actually irish coffee minus the cream. it's probably laced with the 140 proof jameson.....and goofballs are beatnik for barbiturate. letterman used the stock phrase, "hopped-up on goofballs" quite liberally in the late '80s.

[hazillow]

Thanks for uploading this. I wish there was more of Berryman around youtube.

[Unity4vr]

What I want to know-seriously- is how many fans of Berryman have written their own Dream Songs, using his style, meter, etc.?

[rob858585]

I can tell you I have. I studied Berryman in college--in fact, he died a few days before the semester opened--and I did my best to imitate his style for a while. Berryman himself was an admirer and imitator of Yeats early in his career.

[lloplop]

why not your own style?

[crieswhicharewings]

There's no such thing.

[Gobblet7]

Thankyou so much for this video, I have always wondered if he acted as intence as his poetry is, I guess he did. Please upload more if there is any.

[jsd4544]

I have never seen a more incredible reading of a poem.

[hopkins4545]

Berryman was a total mess at this point and yet he's so articulate--he looks possessed. He kept denying that he was Henry, but he was Henry--his identity became dissolved within that persona.  Great video

[kiksm14]

mporeis na kaneis upload to dream song 33 pls?

[simonforman01]

Thank you for posting this. Fascinating footage. Funny I would have thought he'd have had #14 by heart.

[cafais]

Generally, I don't think poets memorize their work. Do teachers still make students memorize poetry in elementary school? It's a horrible practice. Would you expect Hemingway to read "The Old Man and the Sea" by heart? I never understood why people associate poetry with memorization. It's not like acting or singing. Sorry to go on and on; but this misconception (that poetry can, or should, be memorized) has always bothered me.

[PygmalionPictures]

Berryman himself (along with many other poets, most vocally Auden) advocated memorizing poems as a much more valuable alternative to things like writing critical essays.

are you serious with your question "can poetry be memorized"?

It seems that you need to educate yourself before you make ignorant comments on one of my favorite videos in the world.

[cafais]

Reply to Pygmalion: Please spare me the "ignorant comments" comment. I can assure you I'm not speaking from ignorance.

There is a reason poetry readings are called "readings". Poets READ their poems; they don't RECITE them. I know poetry CAN be memorized; my point is, why? Many poets revise their work endlessly, even after publication, why memorize a work in progress? More importantly poets want to WRITE and READ as much as possible; memorizing is simply a waste of valuable time.

[Unity4vr]

-- specially since its obvious Henry is reading his poem here

[DarKool81]

Does it really take up so much time? I have been able to memorize vast tracts of poetry without much effort because I love poetry and therefore, for me, memorizing poems is a joy. I'm a published poet and I definitely advocate memorizing poetry. It's a way of carving their beauty onto the brain, as it were; moreover, many famous poets have advocated the same. I suspect you're just too lazy, or have a shit memory.

[mikstruber]

I have a shit memory, but that doesn't mean the beauty of a poem is not carved in my brain - Would that I could remember every detail of that which gives me joy... sigh

[jacobssandy]

youtube is such a cool invention, great authors like Ray Carver or Berryman who up until watching these videos I knew only through their text - are given a voice.

It's always interesting as you form an unconscious image of the author or a work you read and seeing the reality of it sometimes matches with that and sometimes surprises you.

[TheodorBjork]

@jacobssandy Very true. It has its negative sides though, sometimes I think a work NEEDS to be separated from the artist. Then again, my love for the Beat generation is half their work, part their personas. Out of interest, how did you imagine his "voice" before seeing any video or hearing any audio?

Berryman is much more intelligible here. Seems almost sober. Hehe

[bigcyhutch]

@jacobssandy that is so weird i was just thinking that too and read your words! what an amazing thing youtube is.

[stevevandien]

A great poet, drunk (alas) out of his gourd. Could anyone have saved Berryman?

[mikagamio]

One of my favorite dream songs. Great vid! If you have song 221 could you post it please?

[iconocide]

Thank you so much for posting this! It is such a treasure to feel Berryman's power and presence in such a conversational setting, across so many years and miles.

[Jethr9o]

do you smoke ?

[gdillard1]

Very moving indeed. Thank you hugely. I'm astounded to have found this clip, after reading Berryman for so many years.

Again, many thanks.

[architectureofvision]

do you have any more from this interview? thank you so much for posting this!

[beeess]

Was reading #133 --"a television team came/from another country to make a film of him/which did not him distress"-- realized it might exist here, came downstairs, typed his name in. Thank you for posting it. First impressions are to be a little frightened by his drunkenness off the page, and that his voice is similar to J. Malkovich's.

[guywalker29]

May I thank you deeply for posting this moving film.