John Berryman’s collection of 385 poems, comprising of two different books (77 Dream Songs and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest), titled The Dream Songs circles around the dreams, fears and hopes of the main character Henry. The poems are told from his perspective and through his lens mirror the change of life, the mood swings Henry has. Every poem has three stanzas of six lines each. The following summary focuses on three poems out of the anthology, serving as an example of the writing style and general content of Berryman’s most famous work.
Dream Song 1 deals with Henry’s falling off luck. The first stanza tells of a sulking Henry that refuses to deal with the world. The second stanza starts out from the past, explaining about his good luck in the past, which suddenly stopped. Everything abruptly went wrong and the third-person narrator of the poem wonders how Henry is still alive after all that misfortune. None of the actual misfortune that befalls the character is mentioned, however the vocabulary used hints at dismaying forces. The last stanza has memories of the past and expectations of the future. It deals with lost childhood memories and the inevitability of death. All in all, the first dream song paints a gloomy picture of Henry’s life.
Dream Song 14 deals with Henry’s boredom with life. The first and second stanza are connected through an enjambment. The first stanza focuses on the fact that boredom is something that one shouldn’t have. Nature around Henry is full and nice, and in his childhood his mother warned him not to be bored. This warning goes on into the next stanza, where Henry realizes that he has no power to resist boredom (no inner resources). He starts counting things that bore him, including himself. The stanza ends with slight description of Henry’s plights that also bore him, which leads into the third stanza. The counting of boring things continues, climaxing into the description of a dog that runs away and leaves the narrator behind. The poem paints another grim picture of life that even though it is quite good has nothing but boredom to offer.
Dream Song 76 is a simulated conversation between Henry and death (Mr. Bones). The first stanza deals again with the narrator complaining about his life. Nothing ever happens to him, in sobriety and no bodily pleasures life has become shallow. The second stanza deals with thoughts of suicide. The narrator remembers his father’s death, disapproving that his father left him. Then suicide by gun next to the sea, seems to be the obvious solution. Linking the third to the first stanza through the same metaphor (handkerchief for life), the narrator offers himself to death. He invites death to come and sit with him, explaining that nothing was in store for him so he rather left earth. This penultimate poem of the first collection deals with the main characters thoughts (or dreams) of death.
