John Berryman

John Berryman (October 25, 1914-January 7, 1972) lived a tempestuous life. Born in Oklahoma, Berryman’s family relocated to Florida when he was ten. In Florida, Berryman’s father committed suicide outside his son’s window, which inspired many of Berryman’s later poems. Berryman attended Columbia College and later Cambridge. After graduation, Berryman taught at Harvard, Princeton, University of Cincinnati, University of Iowa, and University of Minnesota before depression and alcoholism drove him to commit suicide in 1972.

Along with writers such as Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, John Berryman wrote Confessional poetry, featuring the anguish he felt much of his life. He wrote Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, which has been compared to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land due to its epic length. The Dream Songs, a collection of over 350 poems from two of his previous works, won Berryman a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. He also wrote a biography on author Stephen Crane. Berryman’s frank style has captured the attention of readers and critics since he first began to publish, ensuring him a place in the literary canon.