The Selected Letters of John Berryman 1St Edition John Berryman Full Chapter

The Selected Letters of John Berryman
1st Edition John Berryman

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Edited by
Philip Coleman and Calista McRae
Foreword by Martha B. Mayou
The Belknap Pr ess of H arvard Universit y Pr ess

Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England 2020
Copyright © 2020 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
John Berryman letters, copyright © 2020 by Kathleen Ann Donahue
All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of Americ a
First printing
Jacket design by Jaya Miceli

Jacket photo of John Berryman © Terence Spencer / LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images
9780674250321 (EPUB)
9780674250338 (MOBI)
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Berryman, John, 1914–1972, author. | Coleman, Philip, editor. |

McRae, Calista, 1986–editor.
Title: The selected letters of John Berryman / John Berryman; edited by
Philip Coleman and Calista McRae; foreword by Martha Mayou.
Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020010252 | ISBN 9780674976252 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Berryman, John, 1914–1972—Correspondence. | Poets,
American—20th century—Correspondence.
Classification: LCC PS3503.E744 Z48 2020 | DDC 811/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020010252
Contents
foreword by Martha B. Mayou vii
Introduction 1
Selected Letters 9
correspondents 625
chronology 635
abbreviations 639
notes 645
Prior Publications 700
acknowle dgments 701
index 705
Foreword
My family and I are grateful to Philip Coleman and Calista McRae

for their interest in the life of John Berryman, and we welcome this
end result of their industry. This volume will be a valuable resource
for people seeking to learn about Berryman. These letters connected
a far-flung network of his friends and fellow writers, and are fasci-
nating snapshots of the literary milieu of his time.
These days it’s without cost to pick up a telephone, send an email,
or video chat with your friends and muses. But the documents here
show the value of a letter writer’s solitary contemplation and pains-
taking committal of fleeting thoughts to paper. It seems to me that
this encourages correspondents to work through their ideas in a way
that does not arise with more direct communication.
Two biographies of Berryman have been written, but his letters
represent a direct testimony in a voice that is substantially different
from a biographer’s: the reader is listening in on the writer speaking
about his life and work. We are happy that this long-anticipated edi-
tion will take its place alongside scholarship on John Berryman and
will further enrich our understanding of the poet and his craft.
—m artha b. mayou

Introduction
N
I think that in letters, as in no other form of writing, the man appears.

—John Berryman, unpublished essay written at Columbia College, spring 1934
THE EARLIEST LETTER in this volume was written in September 1925, by a young
boy who signed himself John Allyn—not yet the poet who would become
known as John Berryman. Sent to his parents, John and Martha Smith, the letter
is formal, dutifully detailed, and determined to reassure them that their son is
having fun—even though he clearly misses them. His account of life at boarding
school concludes: “I love you too much to talk about.” Slightly less than a year
later, in June 1926, he was forced to confront the death of his f ather. The letters
gathered here speak to that loss on many occasions (as when he writes in 1955
to Saul Bellow, “my father died for me all over again last week”). This strand of
Berryman’s story—of early loss, entangled with the depression, guilt, and alco-
holism present for much of his life—is familiar to most readers of his poems,
and the letters’ references to what he called “plights & gripes” in Dream Song
14 can be wry, proud, and desperate, by turns. In August 1948, Berryman tells
James Laughlin, “I’m happy Pound seems better—maybe he & I can change
places.” Several weeks into a March 1967 hospital stay, he tells Arthur Crook of
the Times Literary Supplement that “I am a wreck, but Sir a gorgeous wreck.”
Writing to Ann Levine in the fall of 1964, he declares that a series of recent ill-
nesses is “simply my mind tearing my body to pieces with anxiety.” While t hese
letters delineate periods of immense stress, they also show an affectionate son,
brother, partner, parent, and mentor, and they chart Berryman’s development
as one of the most original poets of his generation.
Berryman’s letters began appearing in print several decades ago. We Dream
of Honour, a generous selection of his letters to his mother, was published in
1988, edited by Richard J. Kelly. Other letters have been quoted in biographies
by John Haffenden (1982) and Paul Mariani (1990); in E. M. Halliday’s memoir,
1
2 T H E S E L E C T E D L E T T E R S O F J O H N B E R RY M A N
John Berryman and the Thirties (1987); and in Haffenden’s Berryman’s Shakespeare
(1999). This book represents the first wide-ranging selection from Berryman’s
correspondence. There are letters here to almost two hundred people, including
editors, fellowship committees, family members, academic colleagues, and stu-
dents who would themselves become well-known writers, such as Edward
Hoagland, Adrienne Rich, and Valerie Trueblood. As a sophomore at Columbia
in 1934, beginning an essay on Horace Walpole, Berryman asserted that letters
had a special capacity to reveal a person’s character, but he tended to take a dim
view of his own correspondence. “I hate letters,” he says to E. M. Halliday in
September 1936, before going on to list everything he would discuss with his
friend if they could meet in person (“poetry, esp. mine & Yeats’ ”; “drama,
esp. yours & Shakespeare’s”). At such times, he seems to see letters as lacking
the lively give-and-take of actual conversation; at others, he seems troubled by
how much a letter might disclose. Writing to Eileen Mulligan in the spring of
1942, he declares that “I have developed . . . a habit of fulness in communication
with you which does not let me appear much less disagreeable on paper than
I am in person.”
Many of Berryman’s letters are short and practical. It is perhaps surprising
that he found time to write as many letters as he did; he took on projects con-
stantly (variously driven by aspirations, dedication, and financial exigencies),
and put an enormous amount of energy into them. By 1928, at South Kent
School in Connecticut, he was sending his family short stories and comic
essays; a December 1930 letter to his mother refers to the student newspaper
The Pigtail, on whose editorial board he served. By the other end of the 1930s, he
would be poetry editor for The Nation. The letters he sent as Nation editor re-
veal a conscientious if at times downright cranky reader of contributors’ work:
he could be passionately encouraging and insightful, or curt and dismissive.
Later in his c areer, when he was no longer involved with magazines as a named
editor, Berryman continued to be troubled by literature’s place in American cul-
ture, as evident in a 1947 letter to Walter Stewart proposing the establishment
“of a literary review: a new, authoritative instrument of documentation and en-
quiry.” Late letters show him requesting books on art history and philosophy,
trying to organize a repeat of the 1962 National Poetry Festival, compiling an
anthology, and drafting a long poem entitled The Children. Writing to his friend
and former professor Mark Van Doren in 1971, he compares himself with A. E.
Housman, who had what Berryman calls “a really bifurcated personality,” but
Berryman himself appears not so much divided as overextended when he moves
between the activities of editing and researching (on topics ranging from the
identity of Mr. W. H. to “The Historical Personality of Christ”), grading pa-
pers and revising poems. His letters document a literary drive visib le whether
he is working on someone e lse’s writing or on his own manifestly hard-won
Introduction 3
poems. Robert Lowell pointed to this quality in his elegy for Berryman: “We
asked to be obsessed with writing, / and we were.”1
For most readers, Berryman’s reputation is linked to The Dream Songs, the
long poem that continues to provoke both poets and critics. Since the first in-
stallment appeared as 77 Dream Songs in 1964, its use of blackface has been one
of the most persistent subjects of discussion. Though his letters rarely address
racial ventriloquism directly, moments do suggest some assumptions about racist
discourse and about race. In a letter from his first term at South Kent, for in-
stance, he attempts to reassure his m other that a new friend is “not a Hebrew.”
The same fall, he describes a Halloween party where one student dressed as a
member of the Ku Klux Klan and another as a slave, while he himself went as
a “Jew[ish] pawnbroker.” By his college years, he adopts blackface in his letters
for intended humorous effect. Decades later, in an April 1963 letter to Poetry
editor Henry Rago, Berryman’s perspective seems typical of a white postwar lib-
eral in the United States; he quickly deflects from his own writing to more
distant figures of stereotypically racist Southerners. The work of contemporary
poets such as Cathy Park Hong, Tyehimba Jess, Claudia Rankine, and Lynn
Xu, who have responded to Berryman’s uses of minstrelsy, speaks to how much
of twentieth-century American poetry is intertwined with what Kevin Young
has called “an elaborate ritual . . . to speak to the soul in crisis.”2
Berryman’s thinking on other social and political issues also emerges in t hese
pages. In some early letters, as he struggles to articulate his masculinity, refer-
ences to women can be demeaning, as well as obsessive and ambivalent. Other
letters question the value of w omen artists. “Why do you need a poetass?” he
asks James Laughlin in June 1940, when Laughlin was trying to find a female
poet to diversify that year’s New Directions list. Berryman’s attitude softens over
the years—his respect for the editor Catharine Carver and for Flannery
O’Connor becomes evident, and he develops an epistolary friendship with
Rich—but the change takes time to come about. The letters allow readers to
evaluate this material directly, and to consider the extent to which it reflects
broader trends in American society and culture in the m iddle of the twentieth
century. They also provide contexts for understanding Berryman’s engagement
with national and international politics, such as the Moscow Trials of 1938, the
Second World War, the assassination of Gandhi, the “thermonuclear business”
of the Cold War, and the National Supersonic Transport program. Though often
glancing, his references to such events suggest the extent to which he registered
and responded to the news around him.
Poetry, though, is usually Berryman’s focus, and it is a source of elation and
pressure: “terrifying labour lies ahead if I can ever do it” he says about The
Dream Songs in an April 1964 letter to Dudley Fitts, when the poem was still
a work in progress. Struggling to prepare his first book in 1939, he tells Allen
Tate, “I alternate between boredom and perfect arrogance; what it needs is a

severe and disinterested reading.” That alternation, with its audible uncertainty
and equally audible desire for affirmation, runs throughout the letters, in
varying postures. A 1940 letter to Robert Giroux insists, “I get a certain amount
of pleasure from some of my poems before they are published, and none a fter
they are published; and I despise being talked about in print, which is a s imple
and usual outcome of publishing.” On the other hand, in an April 1964 letter
to Kate Donahue, just after 77 Dream Songs was published, Berryman admits,
“if somebody doesn’t write to me soon abt my book I am g oing to waltz out of
my skin.” The letters also show Berryman’s keen interest in the physical pro-
duction of his books. In addition to the correspondence with Giroux, there are
exchanges with Claude Fredericks about the preparation of His Thought Made
Pockets & The Plane Buckt (1958), and with Ben Shahn, who provided illustra-
tions for the first trade edition of Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1956). Th ese
letters describe Berryman’s concern for his work at every stage, from manu-
script submission to book design (for instance, he gradually warms to author
photographs; he consistently gravitates to blue covers and bindings). The let-
ters also problematize the idea that Berryman’s career can be divided into dis-
crete phases based on the initial years of publication of his major works. They
affirm instead the critical and creative interconnectedness of his writing life, as
troubled and disorganized as it could often be.
…
It is important to stress how many letters have not been included. For example,
between the fall of 1928 and the spring of 1932 alone, when Berryman was at
South Kent, he sent some seven hundred pages of letters to his mother, only a
fraction of which are represented here. One of our principles of selection has
been to avoid extensive overlap with letters published previously; many of those
South Kent letters, and later ones to Martha Berryman, are included in Kelly’s
We Dream of Honour. Similarly, readers interested in Berryman’s relationships
with Shakespeare scholars like W. W. Greg and George Ian Duthie should con-
sult Berryman’s Shakespeare, which has a chapter of Berryman’s correspondence
on King Lear. For the fullest picture of Berryman’s college years, Halliday’s
memoir is indispensable. Other omissions, though, were forced upon us. Let-
ters to some likely correspondents have not been located: for example, no let-
ters to Ralph Ellison have been found, perhaps in part because by the 1960s
Berryman chose to telephone Ellison, to read aloud from The Dream Songs. No
letters to W. B. Yeats have been found, nor any to Dylan Thomas. Berryman
writes to the White House in 1966, but that letter has not been traced, and nei-
ther have replies to high school students who sent him fan letters in the early
Introduction 5
1970s. Some collections (such as the Claude Fredericks Papers at the Getty) are
currently only partly open to readers and may yield more letters in time.
Some letters have been omitted because they disclose information about in-
dividuals still living, but many letters h ere do include private and sometimes
unappealing material. Since one component of Berryman’s mature work cen-
ters on moral conflicts and failures, it is useful to see his firsthand records of
personal experience and the “fulness in communication” he often reserved for
those closest to him. Our main principle of selection was to shed light on Ber-
ryman as writer, but Berryman rarely stops talking about his work: almost all
of his correspondence is primarily literary correspondence, even when it is also
deeply personal. Many letters sent to lovers or f amily members also refer to his
literary projects. Some of his most intimate letters contain unpublished poems;
a letter to Levine in August 1955, for example, takes the form of a twenty-eight-
line love poem, while several letters to their son Paul include nursery rhymes
and light verse. The letters yield new poems and information on well-known
ones (for example, when William Meredith asks about allusions in the Sonnets,
Berryman writes back to explain; he answers Rich’s questions about obscure lines
in The Dream Songs). They also give us a sense of what Berryman could sound
like when he was not writing a poem. A 1942 letter to an inattentive landlord,
for example, is a half-comic performance of indignation, and mentions writing
only tangentially. Such letters help show Berryman’s full range of tones: bluff,
whimsical, exuberant, grandiose, despairing, flirtatious, insistent, aggrieved, stiff,
authoritative.
A chameleonic letter-writer, Berryman can sound like the quintessential New
Critic when writing to Tate or Blackmur, and slangily telegraphic when writing
to Pound. His epistolary styles—as created by diction, syntax, punctuation, even
typography—vary widely, depending on correspondent and situation. Some-
times, for example, Berryman affects British punctuation and spelling. Although
there is a degree of randomness in how he uses both single and double quotation
marks from page to page, these changes sometimes indicate the stance he wishes
to take toward himself or toward others. As in his poems, these idiosyncrasies—a
non-standard verb ending, the use of a two-point ellipsis, an extended em-
dash—often connote differing levels of agitation, confidence, theatricality, or
formality. Since it would sometimes change the tenor of Berryman’s letters to
standardize such minutiae, we have attempted to preserve them as much as
possible. Titles are a good example of Berryman’s inconsistent expressive prac-
tices. For someone so scrupulous about his scholarly work, he can be erratic
when it comes to t hese. When he does not underline the title of a book, or omits
quotation marks around the title of a poem, it tends to convey casualness or
haste; when he does underline titles or encloses them in quotation marks, it
can suggest a heightened degree of meticulousness and seriousness. Rather than

make titles uniform, therefore, we have retained as far as possible the intermit-
tently jaunty, ceremonious, and perfunctory tones implied. Varying levels of for-
mality also make for irregular practice with dates and addresses. Depending on
the correspondent and the importance of the occasion, Berryman sometimes
writes out a date or an address in full, and sometimes gives nothing at all. On
a few occasions—for example, when announcing that he has finished “Homage
to Mistress Bradstreet”—he dates a letter at the bottom of a page, as he often
dates poems. All addresses have been given as he writes them, but where pos
sible, we supplement the dates with square brackets. Additional information
has been derived from postmarks and content, as well as from notes made by
recipients, archivists, and previous researchers.
This book does not aspire to facsimile, but rather attempts to strike a bal-
ance between readability and precision. It is often clear that Berryman’s idio-
syncrasies, no m atter how performative they appear, are at least partially s haped
by his circumstances—a bumpy flight into Japan, say, or a lack of space at the
bottom of a page. Except in a few circumstances (as when he is being playfully
dramatic by writing the name of his newborn d aughter in large capitals), we
have regularized the shape of his letters, made indenting and lineation consis-
tent, and used standard tabs for block quotes. We align signatures to the right
margin, though Berryman often put them elsewhere due to typewriter settings,
exigencies of space, or whim. Thus our transcriptions do not always capture the
full feeling of disorder or spontaneity that a facsimile would suggest. For ex-
ample, postscripts that run around several margins are ironed out in our tran-
scriptions; see, for example, the afterthoughts and comments surrounding a
draft of an unpublished Dream Song (“Baby Teddy”). However, where post-
scripts were written at the top of a page, sometimes creating uncertainty about
whether positioning is to save space or to make an impression, we have retained
the original placing.
A handful of other issues related to transcription need to be mentioned h ere.
To indicate handwritten material on a typescript, we use italics. Most insertions
are indicated by carets ^as so^; when a note cannot be tied with certainty to a
specific point in the letter, it has been inserted between vertical lines, as in |mar-
ginal insertion| for handwritten comments on manuscript letters, or |marginal
insertion| for handwritten comments on typescript letters. The rationale for this
level of detail is to avoid information loss about Berryman’s epistolary perfor
mances: in some letters, he takes pains to type his postscripts (as when writing
to Cleanth Brooks in 1939), while in others, he scribbles them on the envelope
itself. (In our transcriptions, signatures are not italicized, even when Berryman
does write by hand on a typescript.) But while Berryman’s handwritten, elided
ampersands sometimes look like plus signs, we have used ampersands almost
Introduction 7
universally, given that this symbol is inevitably what Berryman types. Dashes
have also been made uniform. In the interests of space, we have consistently
omitted the recipient’s address, even though Berryman sometimes includes it
at the top or bottom of his formal typescript letters. Unambiguous typing
errors—especially those Berryman himself corrected, and those that do not sug-
gest a larger context of agitation, haste, exhaustion, or intoxication—are si-
lently corrected. When a m istake seems possibly revealing, it has been retained.
Thus, while we omitted odd punctuation marks caused by a new typewriter in
Mumbai in 1957, we retained errors throughout a 1968 letter to Meredith where
Berryman announces he has “the Hong Kong flue [sic] and cannot think good,”
since it seems at least in part a performance of illness, hurry, and a lack of in-
terest in discussing Berryman’s Sonnets. We have tried to avoid frequent instances
of [sic] but use it where there might be possibility for confusion. In the rare
cases where Berryman’s handwriting is unclear (he had, for most of his life, a
neat hand), the most likely readings have been placed in brackets [as so]. Mo-
ments where no conjecture is possible—for example, when the only available
source is a faded photocopy—have been indicated by the placement of the char-
acters we can identify in brackets or simply by the bracketed word illegible.
Many of Berryman’s letters exist as carbon copies at the University of Min-
nesota. In some instances, they contain notes that the recipients probably did
not see; sometimes, as in later book orders to Blackwell’s, the notes are as ex-
tensive as the letters themselves. These kinds of substantial notes have been pre-
served. In a few instances, brief pro forma notes have been omitted: in the
1930s and 1940s, for example, Berryman occasionally wrote “copy” at the top
of his carbon copies, and such notes have not been included here. Carbon copies
are typically unsigned, although Berryman sometimes added his initials or a
typed signature. In general, if a letter is a typescript from the University of Min-
nesota and lacks a signature, it is one of Berryman’s carbons; in a small number
of cases, an annotation explains what seems to be happening on a letter.
Finally, in the interest of including as many letters as possible while still pro-
ducing a single volume, we have kept annotations short and factual. These
notes, usually attached to first mention, supply titles and dates for published
works, and brief biographies for p eople including birth and death dates, oc-
cupation, and sometimes nationality (when an individual was not born in the
United States). Some works mentioned are not annotated because they have
not been located and may never have been published—such as Carolyn Kizer’s
“Recurring Dream of a Hair Stylist,” mentioned in a 1962 letter.
…
In his published poetry, Berryman reflected on the role of letters on several oc-
casions, contemplating the interest they can hold not just for those who first
received and read them but also for many later, who never met the correspon-
dents. In Dream Song 117, he makes this prediction: “Their letters w ill, released,
shake the mapped world / at some point, in the National Geographic.” The let-
ters he refers to are the imaginary correspondence between Henry and one of
his lovers; ambitious, self-deprecating Henry seems to envision letters of such
interest to readers around the globe as to merit publication in a photo-rich gen-
eralist magazine. Conversely, Berryman also dwelt on the limits of correspon-
dence; as one of the epigraphs to The Dream Songs has it, in lines attributed to
Victoria Spivey: “He went away and never said goodbye. / I could read his let-
ters but I sure can’t read his mind.” A great deal remains to be known about
Berryman’s life, work, and contacts. His papers at the University of Minnesota
hold pages and pages of ephemera yet to be explored: unpublished poems and
lectures, notes disintegrating on the paperback covers of science fiction novels,
a map of the world drawn for a young son. The letters here gesture toward the
uncollected Berryman, and a version of Berryman that is still very much a work
in progress. There continue to be questions and gaps. With this selection, how-
ever, we may begin to understand Berryman’s mind and work in ways that have
not been possible before, and to find new directions for Berryman scholarship
in the future.
1925
[To Martha and John Smith]

[UMN, MS]
St. Josephs Academy
Chickasha, Okla.
[20 September 1925]
Dear Parents:
I received your postcards from Alexandria and Bogalusa, and thank you very
much. I hope your trip finished favorably. I am getting along fine in school and
am going to the fair this week. I will write you all about it next Sunday. I am
going to devote the rest of the letter to telling you about the daily routine and
my playmates.
Robert and I have a private room now. On week days I get up at 6:15,
dress and go to Holy Communion in chapel at 6:30. I come back, get Robert
up, dress him, make our bed, and go to breakfast at 7:00. A fter breakfast I
play until 8:00. Then I get Robert and myself ready and go to Mass at 8:15.
When I get out it is time for school. I get my books and go. Recess is at
10:00. I get my lunch and milk, and see that Robert gets his. Then we play
till school. We get out for noon at 11:30. Dinner is at 12:00. A fter dinner we play
till school at 1:00.
In the afternoon recess is at 2:15. We get our lunch and milk. We get out
of school at 3:30. We play till 6:30. Then we study till 7:30. At 8:00 we are in
bed.
Now, my playmates. Th ere is a boy that wears glasses and is about nine years
old. His name is Merril, and his mother is in Virginia. I skate with him a lot.
Robert’s skates w ill not fit him and sometimes I let Buford, another friend of
mine skate on them. Buford’s m other is in Missouri. He is twelve years old.
Edmond and Elias Dobry have skates and I have a lot of fun with them. I don’t
know what I would do without my skates. Rex Smith is a real nice boy, I’ll bet
his mother gave him good training. I play with him quite a bit, he hurt his
thumb quite badly. I play with Francis Nicks, a boy about my size, some, too.
That is about all I know real well yet.
9
Paddy is getting along fine so far. I love you too much to talk about.
Your loving son,
John Allyn
Sept. 20, 1925.
1928
[To Martha Berryman]

[UMN, MS]
Monday afternoon [early fall 1928]
Dear Mother,
Well, here is that long letter you asked for—not saying how long it’s going
to be.
Last night, all the new fellows had a big picnic down by the lake—I ate six
sausages in rolls, an ear of corn, two enormous pieces of pumpkin pie, seven cups
of cocoa, and after my twelfth roasted marshmallow I lost count. Yesterday we got
our first allowance, and last night they had “pop tent,” that is, down in the
locker-room, Mac sells pop, candy, etc. It closed, however, before I got back from
the picnic, so I still have my quarter. We had movies, too—Wallace Beery and
Raymond Batton in “Behind the Front.”1 I’d seen it before, but enjoyed it again.
You asked about the fellows in my form in one of your letters. My especial
chum is Lester Wittenberg. We are g oing to room together next year if pos
sible. HE is NOT A HEBREW.
He lives in New Rochelle, New York, and was quite homesick for a while, but
his parents came up yesterday and he is now O.K. He seems to be a fine boy, such
as you would approve of, and I like him a lot. He had appendicitis in August and
was operated upon, so he cannot go in for football as he would like to have done,
and as he will do next year. He is not “dirty,” but his mother has told him all about
things, just as you have told me. I liked his parents. You’ll meet him when you
drive up. I hope and think that you will like him. I have made several other
friends, also. Th
ere are two Third Formers here from Forest Hill, on Long Island,
several from Huntingdon, and other places farther out, and one from G reat Neck
Estates. By the way, he elevates his elbows like I used to do, and has fearful man-
ners. We all kid him unmercifully and call him “Fiji” or “The South Sea Islander,”
“The Tasmanian Woofus,” e tc. Thank Heavens, you broke me of that!
I blush to tell it, but South Kent played a football game Saturday with Litch
field High and was beaten—10 to 0. They made a beautiful touchdown, from
nearly the w hole length of the field, and followed it with a field goal, in the
fourth quarter. However, we are not discouraged, as it was only a practice game.
Paddy is getting along fine so far. I love you too much to talk about.
Your loving son,
John Allyn
Sept. 20, 1925.
1928

[UMN, MS]
Monday afternoon [early fall 1928]
Dear Mother,
Well, here is that long letter you asked for—not saying how long it’s going
to be.
Last night, all the new fellows had a big picnic down by the lake—I ate six
sausages in rolls, an ear of corn, two enormous pieces of pumpkin pie, seven cups
of cocoa, and after my twelfth roasted marshmallow I lost count. Yesterday we got
our first allowance, and last night they had “pop tent,” that is, down in the
locker-room, Mac sells pop, candy, etc. It closed, however, before I got back from
the picnic, so I still have my quarter. We had movies, too—Wallace Beery and
Raymond Batton in “Behind the Front.”1 I’d seen it before, but enjoyed it again.
You asked about the fellows in my form in one of your letters. My especial
chum is Lester Wittenberg. We are g oing to room together next year if pos
sible. HE is NOT A HEBREW.
He lives in New Rochelle, New York, and was quite homesick for a while, but
his parents came up yesterday and he is now O.K. He seems to be a fine boy, such
as you would approve of, and I like him a lot. He had appendicitis in August and
was operated upon, so he cannot go in for football as he would like to have done,
and as he will do next year. He is not “dirty,” but his mother has told him all about
things, just as you have told me. I liked his parents. You’ll meet him when you
drive up. I hope and think that you will like him. I have made several other
friends, also. Th
ere are two Third Formers here from Forest Hill, on Long Island,
several from Huntingdon, and other places farther out, and one from G reat Neck
Estates. By the way, he elevates his elbows like I used to do, and has fearful man-
ners. We all kid him unmercifully and call him “Fiji” or “The South Sea Islander,”
“The Tasmanian Woofus,” e tc. Thank Heavens, you broke me of that!
I blush to tell it, but South Kent played a football game Saturday with Litch
field High and was beaten—10 to 0. They made a beautiful touchdown, from
nearly the w hole length of the field, and followed it with a field goal, in the
fourth quarter. However, we are not discouraged, as it was only a practice game.
Selected Letters 11
Last night, Mr. Bartlett read the Second Form a dandy polo story by Rud-
yard Kipling—“The Maltese Cat.”2 Perhaps you’ve read it. It’s supposed to be
the best polo story ever written, and was intensely interesting.
Miss Dulon is starting a dramatic club, of which I am a member, and we are
going to act O. Henry’s “The Exact Science of Matrimony,” a funny story.3
Which reminds me, t here is a splendid library h ere, with O. Henry’s Works,
Mark Twain, the Book of Knowledge, Encyclopedia Britannica, and lots of
good miscellaneous reference books and fiction. I spend a lot of spare time t here,
as you can well imagine.
I wrote to U
ncle Jack Saturday, and w ill write to U
ncle Jack this week. I got
your Saturday letter this morning, making seven letters received from you so far.
You have written almost every day, and I thank you lots—am saving them all.
I bet you like the new h ouse a lot, and won’t I be glad to see it Christmas. I
have three whole weeks then—isn’t that a long time? I wonder if Beauty’ll re-
member me—you know, I was gone only three weeks before, and I’ll have been
away almost three months by the time I come home. I sure hope she does.
Last night, we were talking about ice-skating, and Mr. Bartlett said that he
expected skating before Christmas—said that they’d had skating the week be-
fore Thanksgiving one year some time ago. I hope Robert gets along well in the
new school, and likes his teacher. Tell the little scoundrel to write to me, or I’ll
chew his ear off Christmas. Love and kisses from
Your loving son
John Allyn
—
[UMN, MS]
[fall 1928]
Study Hall
As it should be, according to Mr. Bartlett:
It is very quiet in Classroom D, New Building. There is no Council Member
or upper former present, but the boys are industriously bending over their work;
one is studying “A Tale of Two Cities,” another applies himself to the Math as-
signment, while a third is puzzling over his theme. A bee buzzes in and a truck
rumbles past outside, but not one even thinks of looking up from his all-
important work!
As it should be, according to the Second Form:
There is a great frolic in progress in Classroom D, New Building. There
is no Council Member present. One or two of the boys are drawing on the
blackboard or reading books, but thirteen or fourteen are divided into two
armies, and are waging a b attle royal. Most of the fighting is hand-to-hand, but
in the back, a few expert shots bombard the enemy. Pieces of chalk, erasers, and
paper wads fill the air. The mail-truck passes unheard in the general uproar.
As it is, according to those who know:
It is fairly quiet in Classroom D, New Building. A Council Member sits in
the rear of the room, with his eagle eye peeled for any misbehavior. A boy turns
his head to whisper to a neighbor, but is seen and reproved with “Get g oing
there, Brown II!” The truck rumbles past, and a few incautious heads turn, but,
meeting the stern eye of the Council Member, they meekly resume their work.
However, the Council Member cannot see everything, and writing of letters,
reading of books, and passing of notes goes on u nder his very nose. But t hese
crimes are infrequent, for the punishment is dire.
Monday afternoon,
Dear Mother,
This is a theme I wrote today for English. I haven’t time to say much. I got
my History paper (test) back this morning and found that I got 94. I also re-
ceived my Latin test, in which I made 97. How’s that. I have an hour to work
off in a few minutes for being late at assembly this morning. You see, if you
don’t do your job well, or talk in study period, or are late at assembly, you get
an hour, that is, you have to work an hour in the afternoon at some job that
they give you. I’ll write again tomorrow. Barrels of love
Your devoted son,
John Allyn
—
[To Robert Jefferson Berryman]
[UMN, MS]
Friday afternoon [fall 1928]
Dear Robert,
I shouldn’t be writing this, as I said that you’d have to write first, but when
I heard you had started a letter to me, I started this.
How do you like the new school? Are the teachers nice? Mother tells me that
you have picked out a c ouple of “tough eggs” for buddies, and are leaving John
and Jimmie Holstedt alone. Is that nice? Are you practicing to be a bank robber
or a holdup man? If so, I’ll tell you that it is very dangerous but pays well.
Do you know that I have on my last pair of clean socks, and that I’ve worn
them four days? That’s how low on clothes I’m getting. In a day or so, I’ll be
Selected Letters 13
parading around in my B.V.D.’s. Tell Mother that if she doesn’t send me that
box, I’ll appeal to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
How do you like the new h ouse and fireplace? Th
ey’ll be fine this winter,
huh? Every now then [sic], we have a fire drill at night. Then we have to run
down three flights of stairs and outside barefooted and in our pyjamas. Believe
me, it’s not g oing to be any fun to do that this winter with snow on the ground.
I got my second allowance of a quarter t oday—have fifty cents in my pocket,
and feel like a millionaire. By the way, will you please remind Mother that the
“Amazing Stories” and “Weird Tales” should both be out by now. If you’ll be
careful with them, you can read them.
I’m making up lots and lots of stories which I may tell you Christmas. Mind
you, that is not a promise. And if you pester me in letters, I w
on’t tell them to you.
You must do well in your studies, or you can’t come to South Kent. And
when you have to wash or wipe a few dishes, don’t feel abused, because we have
real jobs up here. Two or three hours of garden or general improvement every
afternoon and a regular job to be done twice a day, besides taking care of your
part of the dormitory and waiting on the t able of eight boys e very eighth meal.
Now you groan and tell a tale of woe. Give my love to all and keep a lot
yourself.
Your big buddy,
John Allyn
—
[UMN, MS]
October November 1, 1928.

Thursday morning!
Dear Mother,
I’m mighty sorry I couldn’t write yesterday, but I really didn’t have one second of
spare time. Th
ere’s never any time in the morning, and right after lunch, I hiked
to Kent to see our third team play them. It was a bloody slaughter (25 to 0)—
they have a wonderful team this year and little hope is felt for the victory of our
first team over theirs. Well, I d idn’t get back until 5:30. I had to hurry to get
dressed for dinner (not in costume) and do my job. At 6:10 we had chapel and
supper. Immediately after supper, we all went upstairs to get dressed in costume for
the orgy to come. Then the orgy and at 10 o’clock, bed. So you see I really didn’t
have a single second to write. But this s hall be a long one, to make up for it!
I received your letter of Tuesday morning yesterday noon, and your letter of
yesterday last night. I also got Uncle Jack’s letter. Please thank him for the very
interesting clipping. I’m mighty sorry you didn’t get a letter Monday—I know
just how you feel. I’ll surely write Friday and Saturday after this, if no other time.
It won’t be long now until we learn who w ill be our next president, w ill it?
Don’t we learn next Tuesday. Boy, I hope Smith wins, but if he doesn’t, I think
Hoover w ill make a pretty good president. It must be mighty nice to hear all
the important campaign address [sic] over the radio. Th ere are three or four h
ere
in the school, but no one but except the masters may listen to them.
I’m sure that Granny likes Great Neck and is having a splendid time t here.
Isn’t it wonderfully quiet in Burbury Lane—no automobiles, street cars, etc?
Acting on your suggestion, I’m going to write to her this afternoon if I have
time, if not, tomorrow.
You are correct in your supposition that it is the New E ngland custom to
have a midday feast—Father Kemmis says that w e’ll have dinner about 12 or 1
o’clock—so you won’t have to bring evening clothes—I guess that’s a welcome
relief, isn’t it? I know I don’t like to dress up my best, but perhaps you do.
I’m counting the very days and hours until you come. It won’t be so very
long now—the time is flying. Wow, I’m going to have a good time during the
Christmas vacation. I guess ideas about humor haven’t changed much since you
were a girl—only one or two fellows learned about the razor (I man[a]ged to
keep it secret from the others) and they w ere all for telling the whole school
about it, but I managed to quell them, and my secret is secure for the time.
Now about “Pawling” or “Palling”—when I first heard the name, I remem-
bered having seen it as “Pawling” and as the team had come from some town
in New York, I thought it was “Pawling.” But in one of their cheers, I thought
they said—“P-A.-double L-I.-N-G”, so I decided that it was “Palling.” How-
ever, on second thought, I believe they said “W.-L” instead of “double L.” So I
apologize for my mistake and acknowledge you the victor. It is “Pawling.”
A little bit more about letter-writing. I know how busy you usually are, and
won’t feel a bit abused when I d on’t get letters. So d on’t think that you are ne-
glecting me when you d on’t write. Of course, I love and treasure your letters,
but business before pleasure, “n’est-ce pas, ma mère?”
The Second Form elects a president and a vice-president later in the year—
after Christmas, I imagine. The form keeps the same officers as it progresses,
unless they prove unsatisfactory. The Second Form President has very little, and
the Third Form President has not much more, but when in the Fourth Fifth
and Sixth Form, the president is always a council member or prefect (most en-
viable offices). By the way, I found out yesterday that the prefects are appointed
by Mr. Bartlett, but that the Fourth and Fifth Forms each nominate four of
their members to run for the Council, and the student body votes for them,
two from each form being elected.
Selected Letters 15
Just one more item of news before I get around to telling you about last
night’s orgy. Whenever anyone loses anything, he reports it to the prefect in
charge of assembly, who asks the school about it. That is how I got back a comb
that I’d lost. Well, Tuesday night Breck missed a book of stamps, and reported
it to Nick, who had charge of assembly that night. (By the way, if t here are ever
any allusions or references in my letters that you don’t understand and I haven’t
explained, just ask me about it in your next letter—I’ll be glad to explain it).
Nick asked the school about it and nobody said a word. Nick said that we’d
hear about it later, and everybody was certain that we were g oing to have a “Who
done it” a fter night study. But they were returned during dinner and so we didn’t
have one. But we don’t know yet who did it. You are probably tearing your hair
and screaming “What kind of jackrabbit is a “Who done it”?” Well at 9:00 the
school assembles in the Schoolroom, and there she sits until whoever is guilty
owns up. They have them for smoking, buying candy at the store, going out of
bounds (that is, out of the school’s property) or for stolen articles. One time
last year, Mr. Bartlett knew that someone had been smoking and they had a
“Who done it.” The w hole school sat there, perfectly still, for three and a half
hours. They couldn’t move, speak or go to sleep. Every time some one did one
of those things, they got five mighty swats and sat down again. At 12:30, Crocker
owned up. The prefects broke ten paddles on him, and no one would speak to
him for weeks, not b ecause he’d been smoking, but b ecause he’d made them sit
there so long. Gee, I’ll bet they w ere glad to get to bed. Why, last night I was
up till ten and could hardly keep my eyes open. Believe me, I won’t be asking
to stay up when I get home Christmas. We’re all mighty glad to get into bed at
9:15, especially me, after my nice shower.
Now for the orgy. This is assuming the proportions of a Sunday letter or
book, isn’t it. Well, this is the last part. I c ouldn’t think of a single t hing to do
for last night until on the way home from Kent last evening. I got a long pair
of dark trousers from Brown and wore one of those white shirts that’s too small
for me, leaving one sleeve down and one rolled half-way up. I wore a vest looking
very different from my trousers. Both were too large for me, just as I wanted
them to be. I wore a stocking, knotted, on my head for a skull-cap. Setting my
glasses way down on my face nose, and looking over their top, I made a perfect
picture of a Jewish pawnbroker as I walked along stooping and rubbing my
hands and saying muttering “Hmmm. Money I’ll get out of dem! Hmm”. Can
you picture me from my rotten and inaccurate description?
I’ll tell you about some of the other costumes. Bixby had on a towel turban
and a brown Oriental uniform, a r ifle and cartridge belt. He’s dark, with heavy
eyebrows and made a dandy Sikh officer, “King of the Kyber Rifles.” One fellow
was dressed up as a Klu Klux [sic] and was leading a cringing, submissive black
slave by a chain. Echeverria was a magnificent pirate, with pistols, cutlasses and
daggers sticking out all over him. Crocker had on a full dress suit, coat & all,
but had on no pants, and his nose was painted a flaming red. “Boom-Boom”
Cannon made a good “Betty, the Belle of Baltimore.” Goodwin had messed-up
hair, a pair of pyjamas and a fire-extinguisher over his shoulder. He carried a
raincoat over his left arm. It was very realistic. A group of fifth and sixth formers
made up as the faculty. The resemblances w ere remarkable. They got first
prize—a big five-layer cake. Bobby Blake was a Highlander with a dagger, kilt
and feather in his cap. Ritchie made up as a slouching, suspicious-looking gang-
ster, a bulge on his hip. Skinny Hamilton came walking in with a sign “Be-
fore”. Then Ennis came with a sign saying “Dr. John’s Cod Liver Pills.” Then
Fat Brown came in, his sign saying “After.” That got a good laugh. There were
lots of dandy costumes that can’t be very well described, but you simply must
come up to Hallowe’en next year. Afterwards we had cider, doughnuts and
candy—all we wanted. My, everything was good! Must get outside now. Love
and kisses
Your devoted son,
John Allyn
—
[To John Angus McAlpin Berryman]
[UMN, MS]
Sunday, November 18, 1928
Dear Uncle Jack,

Please don’t pay any more money on my tuition. With your consent, and I
know you w ill consent after this letter, I am going to leave this school |→Thanks-
giving| and go to work.
South Kent is no place for me—there are nice fellows here who will be some-
thing in life and I never will be anything anyhow. This nice place and advan-
tages are wasted on me. You can talk about development, but a fellow has to
have something in him, and I h aven’t got it. I’m a coward, a cheat, a bully, and
a thief if I had the guts to steal.
I think maybe the boys here realize that and I haven’t but one or two friends
in the school, and they all pick on me, because they know I haven’t the bravery
to resent it.
Maybe if I go to work, I can be of a little service to someone.
I’d like for you to go ahead and enter Robert’s application. I’m sorry that
he’ll have my despicable reputation here to face, but he doesn’t seem a bit like
Selected Letters 17
me. He’ll make a nice, straightforward fellow, something I never could have
done.
Id on’t seem to have inherited any of my f ather’s honesty or my m other’s fair-
ness, bravery and patience. I’m very sorry to upset m other’s pride about me
and yours, but I can’t go on wasting your money and affections.
I have none of the fine qualities or emotions, and all the baser ones. I don’t
understand why God permitted me to be born. I’m undesirable and a nuisance
everywhere I go.
When my new suit comes, I’ll return it as it came, and perhaps you can re-
turn it and get back the wasted money. Anything nice is wasted on me.
You can tell Mother now or wait until Thanksgiving. Please let me know im-
mediately which you have done. Otherwise I’ll continue to write her cheerful
letters. I think my love for her and love and respect for you are my only good.
I am sorry to so upset your plans, but they will be wasted on me—
With love
Your son,
John Berryman
P.S. I’m a disgrace to your name.
1930

[UMN, TS]
Thursday afternoon [early December 1930]
Dearest Mother,
I am writing now, before I begin intensive study for the examinations, and
I will only send along a short note Sunday. Exams begin Saturday; we have His-
tory at nine o’clock and French at two o’clock, so you can see how I’ll have to
study tomorrow and Saturday. English is at two o’clock on Sunday and Latin
is Monday morning. The last exam is Math, as usual, on Tuesday morning. The
two hardest exams are the first day. I will say all I want to say before I come
home now and then my Sunday note can be as short as time urges.
I am positive that I cannot possibly get everything I want to take home in
my suitcase—it’s no fun at home u nless I have all the t hings I want, and e very
term I collect things that I want to show you, like the pictures, etc. So I’m
looking around for a stout box, in which to send home my Red Hood, skates,
(the weather has been so warm that I am sure w e’ll have no more skating h ere,
and very doubtful if it will be cold during the vacation, but it’s worth the chance)
Selected Letters 17
me. He’ll make a nice, straightforward fellow, something I never could have
done.
Id on’t seem to have inherited any of my f ather’s honesty or my m other’s fair-
ness, bravery and patience. I’m very sorry to upset m other’s pride about me
and yours, but I can’t go on wasting your money and affections.
I have none of the fine qualities or emotions, and all the baser ones. I don’t
understand why God permitted me to be born. I’m undesirable and a nuisance
everywhere I go.
When my new suit comes, I’ll return it as it came, and perhaps you can re-
turn it and get back the wasted money. Anything nice is wasted on me.
You can tell Mother now or wait until Thanksgiving. Please let me know im-
mediately which you have done. Otherwise I’ll continue to write her cheerful
letters. I think my love for her and love and respect for you are my only good.
I am sorry to so upset your plans, but they will be wasted on me—
With love
Your son,
John Berryman
P.S. I’m a disgrace to your name.
1930

[UMN, TS]
Thursday afternoon [early December 1930]
Dearest Mother,
I am writing now, before I begin intensive study for the examinations, and
I will only send along a short note Sunday. Exams begin Saturday; we have His-
tory at nine o’clock and French at two o’clock, so you can see how I’ll have to
study tomorrow and Saturday. English is at two o’clock on Sunday and Latin
is Monday morning. The last exam is Math, as usual, on Tuesday morning. The
two hardest exams are the first day. I will say all I want to say before I come
home now and then my Sunday note can be as short as time urges.
I am positive that I cannot possibly get everything I want to take home in
my suitcase—it’s no fun at home u nless I have all the t hings I want, and e very
term I collect things that I want to show you, like the pictures, etc. So I’m
looking around for a stout box, in which to send home my Red Hood, skates,
(the weather has been so warm that I am sure w e’ll have no more skating h ere,
and very doubtful if it will be cold during the vacation, but it’s worth the chance)
phonograph records, etc. I only brought the records up because I thought that
I could play them in the Common-room, but the Victrola there is broken, so
it’s no use keeping them h ere, and I’ll want to play them in the vacation anyway.
I will pay for its mailing out of my allowance, as it wouldn’t be fair to ask you
to pay for a convenience to me.
I wrote Granny immediately a fter getting your letter, and hope that she re-
ceived my letter soon. How is she now? Please give her my love and say that I
hope she is much better.
Mr. Cuyler talked to me a long time recently about College Boards and the
new Plan.4 Cram Week is to be eliminated this year. I’ll have to remember to
tell you all about that during the vacation. I have an awful lot to talk about—
hope I can remember the half of it.
The First Team Banquet was held Tuesday night and six ^(four)^ fellows in
my form got letters—both Dawbarns, Harmar and Stump Jones I. Hewat and
Colt got letters last year, but w eren’t so hot this year and d idn’t. Everyone on
the First Team Squad got their numerals, and you can wear them on hats or
sweaters now. I’ll get mine next year. Th ere’s a long article on the banquet in
the forthcoming Pigtail, so I won’t spend much time on it.5
I want to partially prepare you. My face is in a terrible state—it’s as bad as it
ever was. I used that stuff the doctor gave me for a month and it peeled my
skin off, but the pimples and blackheads and things kept on coming on the
new skin and look worse than ever. I’m awfully discouraged—If I were anyone
but myself I should be disgusted with the appearance of John Berryman and
avoid him as much as possible. I’m afraid it’s permanent.
I arrive at twelve o’clock in G rand Central on Wednesday, December the sev-
enteenth, with a big appetite and a tremendous need of a haircut, and I hope,
good news about exams. Until then, adios. All the love in the entire universe to
the family—I shall be so glad to get home,
Your devoted son,
John
Selected Letters 19
1932

[Haffenden, TS]
Saturday [May 1932]
Dearest Mother,
I don’t like to type letters—it seems so impersonal—but this is going to be
a long letter and I can clarify my thoughts better on the typewriter. This is one
gift that I can never thank you enough for.
It is a cold, rainy day, so I have a long time in which to write this. I’ve thought
the whole thing over very carefully, considering e very aspect, and I have de
cided that I prefer High School next year to continuing at South Kent.
I have numerous reasons, and I’m going to try to tell them much as I would
in a theme, in an orderly and rational fashion.
One of the most important reasons is girls. For four years now I have seen
practically none of your sex for nine months of each year. Of course, we think
and talk about them a g reat deal of the time up h ere and it seems to me that we
get a distorted viewpoint. For fellows who go to a flock of dances each vacation
and write to several girls, perhaps it is not so, but I know that most of us come
to regard girls merely as a bunch of organs, without taking into consideration
their intelligence and individuality. There is scarcely a conversation of any length
here, w hether between two fellows or a group, in which the talk does not turn
to girls at one time or another, and the references are nearly always low. The
fellows even talk of girls whom they doubtless respect and admire in a smutty
way and I know of two or three who have no hesitation in referring to their
sisters in that way. I think that another year of South Kent would make it a
long and very difficult task for me to learn to accept girls as a natural and normal
thing and to be easy and natural in relations with them. I think that my first
year at college would be made much harder, if I had to learn to accustom my-
self to their presence as a regular thing. Now I am very awkward and self-
conscious when any are around and in attempting to conceal it I do terrible
things. It seems to me that a year at High School would allow me to get rid of
my false ideas and accept them as a natural thing. I don’t mean that I want to
cut loose and go to a lot of dances and neck and all that (many fellows from
sheltered preparatory schools go absolutely hog-wild when they get to college,
you know)—but I would like to be able to act as normally in the presence of
any females as I would in yours.
Another reason is that I’d like to get rid of several complexes I’ve gotten up
here. Because of ridicule of physical defects, I have acquired quite a budding
inferiority complex, which colors my self-confidence and ideas and makes me
very self-conscious. It has gotten such a hold on me that I am actually coming

to respect the views of Wittenberg, whom I know to be my mental inferior. I’d
like to get rid of that, and I think that starting absolutely fresh in a new school,
I could make a good year of it, in thought, studies, sports and actions, which
ought to help me rid myself of it. As you know, I’ve taken quite a riding about
my eyes and it’s made me very self-conscious about them; in fact, I never see a
reference to sight or vision or even the simple verb “see” that I don’t flinch in-
wardly. I don’t seem to be able to take it stoically; I’ve ceased, of course, to take
any notice of it outwardly, but the kidding continues and it hurts quite a lot. It
has affected me physically, too: although I can look at any object when alone
quite steadily, even in ordinary conversation, I don’t like to meet the other per-
son’s eyes, for I feel that mine are quivering and unsteady, as I think they really
are. That’s not explained very well, but it would take a long time to explain it
thoroughly. Anyway, I’ve become very sensitive about my eyes and I believe that
another year of the kidding might make it a serious t hing of which I might not
be able to get rid later.
Also I’ve gotten the typical smug attitude of many fellows—“Well, I’m a prep
school fellow, and as such a g reat deal better than many of t hese men you see”.
A lot of the fellows up here even look down upon great men who haven’t had a
good education, and while I’d never go that far, I d on’t think a year at High
School would hurt a bit.
During the first three years up here, my courses were not planned so that I’d
have enough work to do, and I got habits of loafing that I’m having the devil
of a time breaking and haven’t succeeded in doing by any means. This is one of
my main worries about Bob. He and I both have excellent minds. If I, with a
natural love for study which he hasn’t, acquired these slack habits, I’m afraid
that he’ll get them so badly that he may never be able to break them. I think
that starting fresh in a school, I’ll be able to s ettle down to work and not quit,
which I’ll have to learn to do if I’m to do anything in college. Next year our
whole Sixth Form w ill Study out, of course, and there’s going to be “horsing”
galore, which means that the work I’d get done would be nobody’s business.
About studies themselves: I can get Solid and Trig in any High School as well
as I can get it here; Virgil I don’t feel that I really need—I’ll probably take it,
but I know enough Latin now to teach it to myself, if I had to; in English, I
could take College English next year: I’ll expect to do a great deal of extra reading
and theme-work u nder your supervision, and I’ll learn more than any dozen
Mr. Cuyler’s could teach me. In French I w ill miss Mr. Patterson, but I expect
to correspond with him regularly and with my ground-work in French I’m sure
that I can pick up the rest from books even if my teacher isn’t any good.6
Up here the only experience we get in elocution and speaking is the reading
in chapel, and since that only comes once every three weeks for each fellow and
Selected Letters 21
is read, it isn’t very beneficial. I’d like very much to be able to speak well. I
have a good mind for argument and debating, I think, and a clear voice
when I am careful, and I might make a good debater. But even if I d on’t, I
want to be able to talk before a group or crowd easily, forcefully and interest-
ingly. In most High Schools they have debating clubs and other t hings which
correspond to them.
I have a strong habit of cursing and blaspheming, which I acquired in my
Second Form year and which has grown steadily ever since. We hear little e lse
up here—many of the fellows swear with e very phrase and many of the masters
are careless. I’ve tried conscientiously to break it this term, but h aven’t succeeded
at all. Of course, I’d hear that in a High School, but not so frequently, I think
and besides I’d only be there for five hours a day, or six. At home I could stop
it, and also acquire some table manners, which are not used here.
I’m not particularly well liked here and there are only about five fellows in
the w hole school whom I really like; Mr. Patterson is the only master whom I
would like to continue to know: so my leaving would not be breaking any real
ties. I got off to a bad start in the Second Form, not being very quick to adapt
myself to new conditions, and have continued largely in the way I began. I think
I’ve learned enough here to be able to adapt myself to any conditions fairly
quickly, so I think I’d do well in a new school.
In short, I feel that during the four years that I’ve been h ere, I’ve learned
about all that the school can teach me. And that is quite a lot, too—you get to
be able to look after yourself up here, to know a bit about the trend of thought
among the upper classes, to play football indifferently well, to appreciate popular
music, to play tennis, to skate and play hockey, to get up early and think of
physical discomforts as something to be avoided if possible but to be taken un-
complainingly if necessary, not to mind physical labor, to dress well (if money),
to obey superiors, to take riding more or less philosophically or at least not to
show outwardly that you mind it, to keep regular hours, to play Ping-Pong and
bridge, to be extremely interested in sports, e tc. But I d
on’t think that the Sixth
Form year h ere could teach me much more of value, and I think that perhaps
it gives fellows an arrogance that is taken out of them very quickly at college,
but hurts in the taking. And I think that there are very definite advantages to
be gained in a year at High School. Of course, a fter four years, I’d like to finish
here, and it’s quite true that the name of a preparatory school of good standing
would be of more value to me at college than a high school, but if I do well in
college, my school won’t matter so much. And I don’t feel that I’m quitting,
either; of course, next year would be by far my easiest, b ecause I’d be a Sixth
Former, taking only four subjects, with an assured place on the Tennis Team,
and a probable line position on the Second Team in Football, with possible let-
ters if I did well.
Of course, I may be too close to it to judge, but I think a year of High School
would do me more good than the Sixth Form h ere and I think I’d enjoy it more.
It’s very hard for me to tell about Bob. He says he likes it here, yet he doesn’t
seem happy, either. I know for a fact that he wastes a lot of time and even while
he’s d oing his work, he works at half-speed and fools a lot. I wouldn’t like for
him to get the habit of loafing, as I have. He has picked up quite a lot, I know,—
that dormitory is a filthy place, if ever t here was one. He curses quite a bit, and
all the rest of it. If I thought the place was going to have the same effect on him
as it has on me, I’d recommend yanking him out for good at the end of this
year, but he’s very different from me in many ways and it may affect him very
differently—I don’t know.
You now know just as much about it as I do, and I leave the decision to you
and Uncle Jack—do just as you think best.
I’m awfully sorry about how things are—I had thought that perhaps you
could have this summer free, without any worries, but it seems not. We’re g oing
to have a lot of fun anyway, though, aren’t we?
I love you with all my heart, Mother—
Devotedly,
John
P S—I figure my average to be 75, a real record for me. Patterson read off the Form’s
English marks for this month yesterday—there w ere twelve in the sixties, two flunks,
and six in the seventies, the highest being 78. I got an 85. So there’s something to
rejoice about. And I’m getting the highest mark in Physics, about 80. But I’m also
getting a complimentary 60 in Geometry, which ruins me completely. Love.
1935
[To E. M. Halliday]
[Haffenden, TS]
Sunday evening, 11:30 [early October 1935]
Dear Milt,
I have so damn incomparably much to say that—trash and kindred fornica-
tions! First I’ll toss to ye swine a few autobiographical details then I’ll answer
your gorgeous and long-awaited letter. I wanted to write you but d idn’t know
where the hell you w ere caging up—and then you write Atherton first!7 By God,
Klinker, where is our love going???
My course is the acne of Hell College. Three seminars—Senior Colloquium,
Edman’s Metaphysics, the last year of the Lit sequence—and three others: V D’s
wonderful Shakespeare, Weaver’s Renaissance and Odell’s Modern Drama.8
Of course, I may be too close to it to judge, but I think a year of High School
would do me more good than the Sixth Form h ere and I think I’d enjoy it more.
It’s very hard for me to tell about Bob. He says he likes it here, yet he doesn’t
seem happy, either. I know for a fact that he wastes a lot of time and even while
he’s d oing his work, he works at half-speed and fools a lot. I wouldn’t like for
him to get the habit of loafing, as I have. He has picked up quite a lot, I know,—
that dormitory is a filthy place, if ever t here was one. He curses quite a bit, and
all the rest of it. If I thought the place was going to have the same effect on him
as it has on me, I’d recommend yanking him out for good at the end of this
year, but he’s very different from me in many ways and it may affect him very
differently—I don’t know.
You now know just as much about it as I do, and I leave the decision to you
and Uncle Jack—do just as you think best.
I’m awfully sorry about how things are—I had thought that perhaps you
could have this summer free, without any worries, but it seems not. We’re g oing
to have a lot of fun anyway, though, aren’t we?
I love you with all my heart, Mother—
Devotedly,
John
P S—I figure my average to be 75, a real record for me. Patterson read off the Form’s
English marks for this month yesterday—there w ere twelve in the sixties, two flunks,
and six in the seventies, the highest being 78. I got an 85. So there’s something to
rejoice about. And I’m getting the highest mark in Physics, about 80. But I’m also
getting a complimentary 60 in Geometry, which ruins me completely. Love.
1935
[To E. M. Halliday]
[Haffenden, TS]
Sunday evening, 11:30 [early October 1935]
Dear Milt,
I have so damn incomparably much to say that—trash and kindred fornica-
tions! First I’ll toss to ye swine a few autobiographical details then I’ll answer
your gorgeous and long-awaited letter. I wanted to write you but d idn’t know
where the hell you w ere caging up—and then you write Atherton first!7 By God,
Klinker, where is our love going???
My course is the acne of Hell College. Three seminars—Senior Colloquium,
Edman’s Metaphysics, the last year of the Lit sequence—and three others: V D’s
wonderful Shakespeare, Weaver’s Renaissance and Odell’s Modern Drama.8
Selected Letters 23
I average four hours sleep a night and meet myself coming and g oing and coming
and going and coming (the damn needle is stuck . . . Jasper!) I hope, apropos
of nothing but our g reat LUV, that your teeth survived their b attles in fine and
sharp shape, and that you are yet among us in joy.) You have never seen such a
dull bastard as Berryman has become. Nothing but the grind—Bacon, Sh,
Dante, Shaw, Plato, Hobbes, e tc. etc. etc. I did rouse myself last night, called
Carson and wended (quite tight) my way to the open dance, but it wasn’t so
open that they’d let me in—are you in the dorm? says they, and I says no are
you in the dorm? and they says yes so what? and I says Aristotle says . . . Well,
when I collected the fragments, I’d taken Carson in a huff home and was in the
grill, surrounded by my admirers. What a life!
This all sounds gay but it ain’t, Klinker, it ain’t. I be in a berry bad state—
sleepless & gruffgruff.
Atherton broke like a bitch her date with me the night you left and went off
with Ralph (spit!). I spent the goddamest evening of my career, sick with all
the adolescent hopelessness, jealousy, rage, self-pity, love, yearning e tc. But the
next morning we fixed it up (impossible to relate these things, isn’t it? Eh,
Klinker?) and I drove up with them. Smith is gorgeous and Morris House is
better—was in her room and in Rockwell’s, Dotty not t here.9 No rape, though.
I wrote her e very day for a week, then got sick and less frequently since. God
damn her, she’s got to marry me whether she loves me or not—she must but
she doesn’t. What the hell kind of a cycle is this? My other little objets d’amour
were as nothing, Halliday—I love this Atherton with my eyes and my guts and
my blood and my brains and my soul, whether I have one or not.
Something else has come up. As if life w eren’t difficult already, Krutch gave
me Thursday four novels to review or throw out.10 He may not print the re-
views, but it’s a swell chance anyway—thru V D, of course. Cabell’s new book,
two psychological novels and a historical epic.11 I feel a little small but unawed.
Reviews have to go in this week—will let you know what happens. This also is
devastating my time.
The game yesterday was lousy, but I see you got beaten—maybe even we can
yuh, heh heh! Incidentally, Atherton writes me special to say t hey’re bombarding
you to come. Far be it from me, but for some obscure reason I’d give both my
right arms and several legs—save only P—to have you h ere that weekend. Can
you at all? For Christs sake don’t let anything stop you if you humanly can! I
don’t give a whistle in hell for anybody e lse, but you and Jane have got to be
here. If you can spare the time, etc., fellow.
Down with Rosalie and hurray for Curtis—may she be fertile. A PtCounter
Pt reposes not three feet from me, but to save me I haven’t time to look at it
again—read it twice, swell.12 Cheers for your refuge and not dishworking, and
work, Klinker—or by God I’ll dazzle you with my wisdom, I’m getting my four
years of college in one year, my head is bloody but bowed and bent and broken
not by bitches. Life is—
Wrote Rockwell some time ago & got a reasonably amusing return which I
haven’t ackn. Jane writes wonderfully—your letter and hers are all that keep
me head up, me hearty.
Sorry as hell to stop, but I’ve still got two Dialogues, Dinsmore’s Dante, a
hunk of damnable Wordsworth (I’ve discovered that part of his name was
omitted, it’s Words worth Shit), and a play to read tonight, believe it or not.
What are you reading and how’s the work?
Write when you have time and I’ll do the same, answering or not. Best of
fuck, ole man,
Castrate Klinker, the Balls of the Caribbean
I didn’t say anything about Rockwell a-purpose, but—she’s not to marry, Halliday—
or maybe she is—I thought I had at last an opinion, however worthless, but I haven’t.
Bless you, anyway. But if you forget her, swell. I can’t say anything at all, Milt, but I’d
love to see you, damn your soul—
—
[To E. M. Halliday]
[Haffenden, TS]
Saturday night [?16 November 1935]
Dear Milt,
Christ! I’ve just read Richard II—listen:
No matter where;—of comfort no man speak;
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so,—for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:—13
How can a man write so? A few of the sonnets w ere beautiful and bone, but in
the ten plays I’ve read there’s been nothing like this—a writing that c an’t be
Selected Letters 25
learned and c an’t be written, but it has been by some few g reat—a rhetoric that
swells and transcends sound and was deathless when it began—Hopkins:
Thou mastering me
God, giver of breath and bread;
World’s strand, sway of the sea,
Lord of living and dead:
Thou hast bound bones & veins in me, fastened me flesh,
And after it, almost unmade, what with dread,
Thy doing—and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.14
Donne: God hath another manner of eternitie in him; He hath an w hole eternal
day; an eternall afternoone, and an eternall forenoone too; for as he shall have
no end, so hee never had beginning . . .
At the round earths imagin’d corners, blow
Your trumpets, Angells, and arise, arise
From death, you numberlesse infinities
Of soules, and to your scattred bodies goe,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’rethrow,
All whom warre, dearth, age, agues, tyrranies,
Despaire, law, chance, hath slaine, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never tast deaths woe.15
And on and on and on—I know damn well you know t hese and devils are my
witness that I am without leisure to copy thus, but zounds! and other loud ec-
static sounds. To bed now, I’m worn out, and I’ll write thee tomorrow.
Monday—didn’t have a second all day yesterday, read “King John”, Boccac-
cio’s Filostrato and Chaucer’s Troilus, a dozen essays by Hazlitt and innumer-
able letters by Lamb (Get the Modern Library Lamb, a new Giant—it’s com-
plete;16 I also have the Random House Coleridge now and it’s fascinating to
tally the letters they exchanged), Damon’s study of Ulysses in Hound & Horn
(the best I’ve seen), e tc. etc.17 Incidentally, my library is augmenting (wrong use,
I know) lovelily (take that and that), although I’m utterly penniless: have some
astonishing volumes for you to peruse when you come, and get books to re-
view all the time—Robinson’s King Jasper, Masters’ Invisible Landscapes, A E’s
Selected Poems, etc. recently.18
The most important thing that is happening at present is that Van Doren
and I are becoming real friends, I think. I am completely without awkwardness
or constraint in his presence (which is something for me, as you know) and
we talk interminably about everything most of the time. This Shakespeare is
wonderful—I’m reading everything wholly and carefully, of course, and writing
papers (no papers or notebook required, said he superiorly)—the progression

chronologically is the most interesting thing I can off hand think of. When we
talked Friday he told me that on the train to Chicago Tuesday he wrote a poem
that grew out a conversation we had, and I asked to see it; he said he’d bring it
up. Lo and behold, Saturday morning appears a letter from him, not a letter
but an envelope containing a little blue exam book, with the poem, called The
Happy Warrior,19 inside, inscribed to the yours truly you may have read about
in a HORRIBLE book called Pishtush or why the willynilly slimies tend to
sodomy. I haven’t time to copy the poem—it awaits thee. And I said Friday I’d
never seen his “Now the Sky & other poems”20 and couldn’t find it: could I
borrow his copy? Sure. So today he brings up a copy neatly inscribed to me,
God bless him, and if I was indiscreet or something to ask it can’t be helped
now. Anyway he’s a marvellous marvellous fellow, and the three of us are g oing
to have a hell of a fine time Christmas.
Your letter was of course gorgeous—I must have been wrong about your
writing only once, because I have your Ind game letter—it would kill me to
think one of our immortal documents had gone astray. Your work seems to be
gorgeous, like mine—and hooray for Rosalie. Hast thou layed yet? To be blunt
about it. I pray for the fruition nightly, chaste one. I remain tightly at my task
except (new paragraph for this)
I drove up to Northampton with Anne [sic] Atherton last Sunday, as y ou’ve
doubtless heard.21 Had a fairly swell time and was witty and pleasant invariably
(I hope—tell me what R. and A. said on this score), but I was shown clearly
how goddam in love I am and how I’ve got to get out of it. You see, Jane has
never loved me but she did desire me mightily last summer—the which is now
gone. We went for a long walk alone in the wood there in the afternoon and
once I offered to kiss her, but she said later and I never spoke of it or gestured
again, not even at leaving. She knew I couldn’t in selfrespect ask again, but not a
move made she, also knowing how I was being slowly murdered underneath it
all—so obviously nothing but cursed fucking blasted damned rotted ghastly
camaraderie of the chitchat variety remains. Hell and hell!!! But I bore it well, as
needs must, and wrote her a very tender letter, Christ only knows how. Now
comes the crowning insult: she didn’t think she’d be able to get down again
before Christmas but she’s driving down this Friday with Bobby Winslow for
the Brown-Col. game and having a cocktail party that afternoon for them
(Mary and Kenny also coming, she thinks); she writes me,22 “Please come (to the
party, this is), because I d
on’t think I’ll be able to see you otherwise, b ecause I’m
going to be on my very best behavior the whole weekend, because I hurt Bobby
too much as it is.” Bitch bitch bitch—she not only was a bitch at the dance
when she was down to the game and for my birthday,23 but the next morning
Selected Letters 27
she lied and went out with “Ralph” when she had expressly promised to have
dates with no one e lse the weekend; now she gets righteous as hell and w on’t
even see me except at a party where the Winslows are guests of honor, she is
hostess and fifteen god-knows-who’s mill in all directions. Boy, what a sense of
honor, what a noble nature, what a kind disposition. I realize I sound absurd,
and I’m not blaming her at all, I’m only realizing (and tough it is, too) what she
is apparently like and trying to prepare myself to make my affection relax its
death-grip on her worthless throat. Who the hell blames people for what they
are? It’s when they act out of character that you give them hell, and that’s what
I’m really doing—giving her hell in the hope that this is really out of character,
or that she is really fond of me and h asn’t been lying b ecause I amused her or
because she liked to have someone mad about her (you see, I’ve learned thor-
oughly that she has only been popular for a short time—for years she knew
Rockwell and Winanne at school but not otherwise, they never invited her to
parties, etc.).24 I hope and hope that she r eally i sn’t a bitch; but I know she is. So
I don’t think I’m going to the party and while I’m going of course to continue
to be affectionate as long as I feel affectionate (which I pray w ill be short), I’m
not going to be a raving rug for her to clean her boots on, etc. etc. etc. Enough
of that—I sound like a child and feel like one too. Where the hell is this philo-
sophic calm I spoke about—the fact is that my whole devotion is engaged,
strangely—I say “strangely” b ecause I like and desire two other girls, Elspeth
and Shirley, and I respect each of them far more than Jane, in ways, but I am
perfectly convinced that if I have to live without Atherton it w ill kill me—in
25
fact, I w on’t, and that’s the end of it. She’s got to be h uman and love me—
Halliday, why do I kick against the pricks???? So on and on ad nauseam.
I’ve had an invitation from Elspeth and a Miss Perera to a dinner-dance on
December 27, and Elspeth says you should have one by now—for Gods sake,
accept, and w e’ll have a wonderful time. Formal and about forty p eople, Wi-
nanne, Bobbie, Elspeth, e tc. and no Atherton or Rockwell. ACCEPT, you, or
I’ll brain you. I had refused verbally when Elspeth told me she’d asked you
also—now we’ve got to go.
I’ve mailed you out a copy of The Review—everyone in sight says this is
absolutely the best issue ever. Giroux modelled the format on Hound and
Horn and did all the work of makeup himself—it’s swell, isn’t it? And Elegy is
well printed at last—what a hell of a rumpus that little poem is creating, be-
lieve it or not,—50 persons per day ask what it means, and VD and I sit tight
and w on’t tell.26 The damn thing is crystal clear and unambiguous, I think
honestly, assuming some knowledge of Crane’s life and work—they fail to
understand their own ignorance, the poem is simple enough. Look at my re-
view also.27
eally must get to work—sorry I haven’t time to be amusing and as brilliant

R
as you seem always able to be, but LIFE IS GRIM—write soon and bless your
little heart, it’s only a month now—
John
Letter from Rockwell will interest you—
1936
[To R. P. Blackmur]
[Princeton, MS]
408 West 115 St.
New York City
Monday [April 1936]
Dear Mr. Blackmur,
Your review is of course absolutely first-rate, and exactly what we hoped for.28
I wasn’t in fact afraid you’d ‘write down’ or be cursory, but there was the pos-
sibility. It’s a fascinating discussion; aside from the critique of his method and
the comparison you instituted I’m most delighted by the statements on dogma
arising in the practice of your (but you don’t name it) criticism and in Tate’s.
With nearly identical views of the nature of the dichotomy, you take distinct
but analogous approaches to ‘form’, he through ‘insight’, you through craft.
I’m sending up a set of proofs of the verse to be printed and read, in case
you’d like to run through it before you come.—Thanks infinitely for letting us
have your essay.
Sincerely,
John Berryman
Please ignore, by the way, my verse and reviews in the copies of the Review you
have; I did them when I knew no better.
J.B.
—
[To Nicholas Murray Butler]
[Columbia, TS]
April 16, 1936
Dear Dr. Butler:
The Boar’s Head Society of Columbia University invites you most cordially
to be a patron of this year’s Poetry Reading, which is to be held in Harkness
eally must get to work—sorry I haven’t time to be amusing and as brilliant

R
as you seem always able to be, but LIFE IS GRIM—write soon and bless your
little heart, it’s only a month now—
John
Letter from Rockwell will interest you—
1936
[To R. P. Blackmur]
[Princeton, MS]
408 West 115 St.
New York City
Monday [April 1936]
Dear Mr. Blackmur,
Your review is of course absolutely first-rate, and exactly what we hoped for.28
I wasn’t in fact afraid you’d ‘write down’ or be cursory, but there was the pos-
sibility. It’s a fascinating discussion; aside from the critique of his method and
the comparison you instituted I’m most delighted by the statements on dogma
arising in the practice of your (but you don’t name it) criticism and in Tate’s.
With nearly identical views of the nature of the dichotomy, you take distinct
but analogous approaches to ‘form’, he through ‘insight’, you through craft.
I’m sending up a set of proofs of the verse to be printed and read, in case
you’d like to run through it before you come.—Thanks infinitely for letting us
have your essay.
Sincerely,
John Berryman
Please ignore, by the way, my verse and reviews in the copies of the Review you
have; I did them when I knew no better.
J.B.
—
[To Nicholas Murray Butler]
[Columbia, TS]
April 16, 1936
Dear Dr. Butler:
The Boar’s Head Society of Columbia University invites you most cordially
to be a patron of this year’s Poetry Reading, which is to be held in Harkness
Selected Letters 29
Academic Theatre at eight-thirty o’clock on the evening of Thursday, April the

thirtieth.
Since we have no fund and no admission is charged, our only means of pay-
ment for prizes and other expenses incident to the Reading lies in subscriptions
from patrons. The minimum subscription is five dollars; but we hope, at the
least, for your permission to use your name.
The Reading promises to be very interesting, and I particularly hope that
you w ill be sufficiently interested to honor us with your presence. Mark Van
Doren w ill preside and speak on the criticism of R. P. Blackmur, our guest of
honor; and students will read their own verse.
I hope very much that you will accept and attend; the check should be made
out to the Boar’s Head Society and addressed to 404 John Jay Hall.
I wish also to take this opportunity of thanking you for my appointment to
the Euretta J. Kellett Fellowship for Cambridge for the next year: it was a great
and unexpected honor, of which I hope to show myself worthy.
Sincerely,
John McAlpin Berryman
Chairman
—
[To E. M. Halliday]
[Haffenden, MS]
Stony Croft
Williamsburg, Ontario
September 3, 1936
Dear Milt,
I realize that I’m a double-damned worm for not having written; there are
two facts: first, I have of course so intolerably much to tell you that I kept hoping
somehow I’d see you; second, you know how I hate letters and how I won’t just
sit down and do anything. If y ou’re angry, y ou’re a worm, b ecause you know
very well I love thee with my heart and soul, |OVER, darling| Beloved Beetle;
in fact, I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not Beetle more.29 Con-
sider the universe as a cosmic Beetle—the abstract essence of Beetle, to be in-
tuited not perceived. Contemplate Beetle: Beetle w ill be discovered on exami-
nation to have two attitudes: Beetle is Inscrutable, and Beetle Bites. Heigh ho,
ça suffit.
Halliday, I have got to see you before I go. You are the most important of
the three reasons why I h aven’t sailed long since—the others being my natural
but incredible procrastination, and my health which is miserable—no germs,
but endless fatigue, underweightness, nervousness, etc etc. The doctors three
prescribed rest e tc. So I’m up h ere in the wilderness (did you get my wire from
Utica ten days ago?) sleeping and reading. Wmsburg is the habitat of the On-
tario Myth, one Herr Locke, who has performed no miracles upon me.30 Where-
fore I’m going up to Montreal tonight, thence probably to Quebec ( j’avais une
fois il y a longtemps grand désir à voir le sanctuaire de Sainte Anne de Beaupré—
et je l’ai encore), and w ill be back in New York next week. I have to be in resi-
dence at Clare on October 3rd, which means sailing about the 20th, as I intend
to take a freighter who w ill convey my books. So you got to come East practi-
cally at once, and no excuses!!!!!
God only knows what will happen in the next two years and I want to see
you. I estimate we have about two hundred hours of uninterrupted talking to
do—which if we d on’t do now, we may have to do in Hell under rather diffi-
cult conditions—so come East! Please, Halliday! If you need money, wire me
and I’ll send what I can, but come, my tru luv.
Outline of discussion:
(1) religion
(2) metaphysics
(3) contemporary worldview
(4) poetry, esp. mine & Yeats’.
(5) drama, esp. yours & Shakespeare’s.
(6) literature in general
(7) women
(8) Van Doren
(9) all our friends
(10) you
(11) me
(12) life
(13) the Beetle
So come oh come, my fran’, and let us burn the midnight pan.
Write me at home tout de suite and follow it in person. I’ll send a volley of
postcards and write again directly I return to 408. God bless you, Milt—
John
I have your last letters (Jun 3 & July 1st) up h
ere & have re-read them just now—
they marvellous, you dog—yippee!!
Selected Letters 31
—
[UMN, MS]
[4 September 1936]
A fascinating place, Mum—you’ve got to come upon vacation when you can.
Mélange of strangeness & familiarity produced by the two languages everywhere.
Je m’amuse beaucoup with cathedrals, books, shrines, exploration (I’ve walked
miles), the harbor, etc. Superb cross this31—love
J
—
[To R. P. Blackmur]
[Princeton, MS]
M.4. Memorial Court

8 Oct 1936
Dear Blackmur,
God knows why I didn’t write long since—find in my papers two typed pages
to you on July 10 but unfinished, and dull in any case. Was ill most of the
summer, then in Canada to rest (hoped to get to Harrington but it was too far
for my purse), then usual frenzy of packing, e tc. Forgive my incoherence, I’m
devilish nervous this evening—been trying to work out a poem & c an’t—Christ
for a poem with all the uncanny shock of Yeats’ “Fisherman” or Crane’s “Para-
phrase” and at the same time ordered strength, as Ransom or Stevens—I am
beginning to understand how it drives you mad after a time.32 I wanted aw-
fully to see you again, we had no chance to talk for hours and hours, as you
have to—opinion, dozens of poems, theory, metaphysics and just hearing the
voice of someone you respect has an intellectual quality—let me collect my scat-
tered wits or I shall have to tear this up.
←(finished the poem in this interval, honest!)
I’m awfully glad about the Harcourt Brace contract and very pleased if
your coming to New York for our dear little Bartholomew Boar Pig had any-
thing to do with it. And I hope very much that that, and any other writing
you’ve been doing, are going to your satisfaction—which is to say, perfectly.
Have you finished the long poem, “ ? ’s Delight”?33 I should like to see it if
you’ve a copy you don’t mind missing for a month. The sonnets “Judas Priest”
are brilliant—lines keep recurring to me, in fact I have both ^(sonnets, not
lines)^ by heart
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The Selected Letters of John Berryman 1St Edition John Berryman Full Chapter

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The Selected Letters of John Berryman

1st Edition John Berryman

Foreword by Martha B. Mayou

The Belknap Pr ess of H arvard Universit y Pr ess

John Berryman letters, copyright © 2020 by Kathleen Ann Donahue

All rights reserved

Jacket design by Jaya Miceli

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Berryman, John, 1914–1972, author. | Coleman, Philip, editor. |

foreword by Martha B. Mayou vii

My ­family and I are grateful to Philip Coleman and Calista McRae

—­m artha b. mayou

I think that in letters, as in no other form of writing, the man appears.

Tate, “I alternate between boredom and perfect arrogance; what it needs is a

can suggest a heightened degree of meticulousness and seriousness. Rather than

[To Martha and John Smith]

[To Martha Berryman]

[To Martha Berryman]

Friday after­noon [fall 1928]

October November 1, 1928.

Sunday, November 18, 1928

Dear ­Uncle Jack,

[To Martha Berryman]

[To Martha Berryman]

[To Martha Berryman]

very self-­conscious. It has gotten such a hold on me that I am actually coming

papers (no papers or notebook required, said he superiorly)—­the progression

­ eally must get to work—­sorry I ­haven’t time to be amusing and as brilliant

­ eally must get to work—­sorry I ­haven’t time to be amusing and as brilliant

Academic Theatre at eight-­thirty ­o’clock on the eve­ning of Thursday, April the

M.4. Memorial Court

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

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My family and I are grateful to Philip Coleman and Calista McRae

—m artha b. mayou

Friday afternoon [fall 1928]

Dear Uncle Jack,

very self-conscious. It has gotten such a hold on me that I am actually coming

papers (no papers or notebook required, said he superiorly)—the progression

eally must get to work—sorry I haven’t time to be amusing and as brilliant

eally must get to work—sorry I haven’t time to be amusing and as brilliant

Academic Theatre at eight-thirty o’clock on the evening of Thursday, April the