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	History of the Plutzik Reading Series Dannie Abse Edward Albee John Ashberry James Baldwin Toni Cade Bambara John Barth Dan Beachy-Quick Madison Smartt Bell John Berryman Linda Bierds Elizabeth Bishop Gwendolyn Brooks J. M. Coetzee Robert Coover Robert Creeley Robertson Davies Lydia Davis Kathryn Davis Samuel Delany James Dickey Daniel Donaghy Beverly Donofrio Rita Dove Rikki Ducornet Ralph Ellison Clayton Eshleman Brian Evenson Alan Ginsberg Dana Gioia Joy Harjo Matthea Harvey Anthony Hecht John Hollander Maureen Howard Richard Howard Fanny Howe Christine Hume Shelly Jackson LeRoi Jones Erica Jong Ilya Kaminsky Sally Keith Galway Kinnell Maxine Kumin Denise Levertov James Longenbach Robert Lowell Alison Lurie Nathaniel Mackey Gerard Malenga Ben Markus Heather McHugh Christopher Merrill W. S. Merwin Stephen Millhauser Rick Moody Michael Ondaatje Alicia Ostriker Michael Palmer Carl Phillips Tom Piazza Marge Piercy Robert Pinsky Bin Ramke Donald Revell Adrienne Rich Salman Rushdie Joanna Scott Alan Shapiro William De Witt Snodgrass John Updike Helen Vendler Ellen Bryant Voigt Andrei Vosnesensky Derek Walcott Richard Wilbur C K Williams James Wright Charles Wright Dean Young Paul Zimmer John Berryman 16 Nov 1965 More about John Berryman John Berryman was born John Smith in MacAlester, Oklahoma, in 1914. He received an undergraduate degree from Columbia College in 1936 and attended Cambridge University on a fellowship. He taught at Wayne State University in Detroit and went on to occupy posts at Harvard and Princeton. From 1955 until his death in 1972, he was a professor at the University of Minnesota. His early work was published in a volume entitled Five Young American Poets in 1940 and reflects the influences of the Irish and British poets W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Americans Hart Crane and Ezra Pound. Tremendously erudite and a brilliant teacher, Berryman in his early work — Poems (1942) and The Dispossessed (1948) — displayed great technical control in poems that remained firmly rooted in the conventions of the time. It was not until the publication of Homage to Mistress Bradstreet in 1956, when he was already in his forties, that he won widespread recognition and acclaim as a boldly original and innovative poet. Nevertheless, no one was prepared for the innovation that would follow, a collection that would seal Berryman's reputation as an essential American original: 77 Dream Songs, which was published in 1964 and awarded a Pulitzer Prize, unveiled the unforgettable and irrepressible alter egos "Henry" and "Mr. Bones" in a sequence of sonnet-like poems whose wrenched syntax, scrambled diction, extraordinary leaps of language and tone, and wild mixture of high lyricism and low comedy plumbed the extreme reaches of a human soul and psyche. In succeeding years Berryman added to the sequence, until there were nearly four hundred collected as The Dream Songs. John Berryman was elected a Fellow of The Academy of American Poets in 1966 and served as a Chancellor from 1968 until his death. Text from poets.org Picture from americanpoems.com
Copyright © 2005 University of Rochester Photographs + Manuscripts: Plutzik Papers, Dept. of Rare Books, University of Rochester Libraries The Plutzik Series The Department of English 404 Morey Hall, RC Box 270451 University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627-0451 585-275-4092 engdept@mail.rochester.edu