{"product_id":"77-dream-songs-john-berryman-9780374534523","title":"77 Dream Songs","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA wild, masterful Pulitzer Prize-winning cycle of poems that half a century later still shocks and astounds\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJohn Berryman was hardly unknown when he published \u003ci\u003e77 Dream Songs\u003c\/i\u003e, but the volume was, nevertheless, a shock and a revelation. A \"spooky\" collection in the words of Robert Lowell-\"a maddening work of genius.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs Henri Cole notes in his elegant, perceptive introduction, Berryman had discovered \"a looser style that mixed high and low dictions with a strange syntax.\" Berryman had also discovered his most enduring alter ego, a paranoid, passionate, depressed, drunk, irrepressible antihero named Henry or, sometimes, Mr. Bones: \"We touch at certain points,\" Berryman claimed, of Henry, \"But I am an actual human being.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHenry may not be real, but he comes alive on the page. And while the most famous of the Dream Songs begins, \"Life, friends, is boring,\" these poems never are. Henry lusts: seeing a woman \"Filling her compact \u0026amp; delicious body \/ with chicken p疳rika\" he can barely restrain himself: \"only the fact of her husband \u0026amp; four other people \/ kept me from springing on her.\" Henry despairs: \"All the world like a woolen lover \/ once did seem on Henry's side. \/ Then came a departure.\" Henry, afraid of his own violent urges, consoles himself: \"Nobody is ever missing.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e77 Dream Songs\u003c\/i\u003e won the Pulitzer Prize in 1965, but Berryman's formal and emotional innovations-he cracks the language open, creates a new idiom in which to express eternal feelings-remain as alive and immediate today as ever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e John Berryman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0374534527\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780374534523\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Farrar, Straus and Giroux\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/21\/2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 112\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.25lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.10h x 5.40w x 0.50d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/04\/2015 pg. 40","brand":"John Berryman","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44048622027007,"sku":"9780374534523","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_cde4f9bf-a0e9-4350-9302-e73c75a077c1.jpg?v=1684996844","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/77-dream-songs-john-berryman-9780374534523","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}