Overview

John Berryman's Dream Songs are arguably the funniest, saddest, most intricately wrought cycle of poems by an American in the twentieth century. They are also, more simply, the vibrantly sketched adventures of a uniquely American antihero named Henry. Henry falls in and out of love, and is in and out of the hospital; he sings of joy and desire, and of being at odds with the world. He is lustful; he is depressed. The collected Dream Songs consists of 385 discrete poems, combining those from 77 Dream Songs, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1965, and those from His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1969. But for Berryman, Henry lived on. Over the years, the poet wrote more than a hundred additional songs that didn't make it into the various published editions of the songs. As elucidated by Shane McCrae in the introduction to this edition, Berryman hoped that readers might slot these unpublished poems in among the rest. Only Sing, which includes both finished poems and drafts, isn't merely the scraps left on a cutting room floor; it is a continuation of the epic cycle, an additional set of poems that crack language open, an extension of Berryman's brilliant account of madness shot through with searing insight.

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Reviews

""[A] brilliant collection of previously unpublished poems from Berryman's Dream Songs . . . It's extraordinary to reencounter that voice--at once comic, tragic, and heartbreaking--across the span of these poems, many of which achieve the heights of those that established Berryman's stellar reputation . . . Courtly, profound, and irresistible, this is a gift for readers already tuned into Huffy Henry and those new to Berryman's essential American songbook."" --Publishers Weekly, starred review ""Relentless, inspired . . . This surprise volume [is] a key addition to Berryman's oeuvre."" --Michael Autrey, Booklist ""Fascinating . . . many brilliant lines and phrases, some laugh-out-loud self-deprecation by the narrator[s], and plenty of provocative and still topical questioning."" --Rupert Loydell, International Times

""[A] brilliant collection of previously unpublished poems from Berryman's Dream Songs . . . It's extraordinary to reencounter that voice--at once comic, tragic, and heartbreaking--across the span of these poems, many of which achieve the heights of those that established Berryman's stellar reputation . . . Courtly, profound, and irresistible, this is a gift for readers already tuned into Huffy Henry and those new to Berryman's essential American songbook."" --Publishers Weekly, starred review ""A key addition to Berryman's oeuvre."" --Booklist

Author Information

John Berryman (1914-1972) was an American poet and scholar. He won the Pulitzer Prize for 77 Dream Songs in 1965 and the National Book Award and the Bollingen Prize for His Toy, His Dream, His Rest in 1969. Shane McCrae is the author of several books of poetry and a memoir. His most recent collection of poems is New and Collected Hell (2025). He teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York City.

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