John Berryman, originally named John Allyn McAlpin Smith, was born in McAlester, Oklahoma, in 1914. His childhood was shattered early when, at the age of twelve, his father took his own life outside the window of young John’s bedroom. This traumatic event stayed with him throughout his life. He later adopted his stepfather's surname, Berryman, and the weight of that fateful morning influenced nearly everything he wrote.
He attended Columbia University and later received a fellowship to study at Clare College, Cambridge, where he immersed himself in the works of British modernists and honed a formal discipline that would eventually evolve into a more personal style. After returning to the United States, he taught at several universities, including Harvard and Princeton, eventually settling at the University of Minnesota, where he spent most of his career.
“During the 1940s and early 1950s, Berryman produced competent and respected poetry that displayed skill but lacked a distinct voice.”
This changed with the publication of *Homage to Mistress Bradstreet* in 1956, a long poem where he creatively engages with Anne Bradstreet, America’s first published poet. It was ambitious, unusual, and set apart from the contemporary literary scene.
Following that, he created the *Dream Songs* series. Published in two volumes—*77 Dream Songs* in 1964 and *His Toy, His Dream, His Rest* in 1968—this sequence introduced Henry, a middle-aged white American man who speaks in a jagged, grief-laden, sometimes minstrel-like tone, alongside an unnamed friend who calls him "Mr. Bones." The poems blend humor and heartbreak, showcasing formal inventiveness and deep strangeness. *77 Dream Songs* won the Pulitzer Prize in 1965, and the complete series solidified Berryman’s place in the American literary canon.
