So far, Berryman is all about rhythm for me.  And what’s weird is that the rhythm I find in the poems isn’t matching the rhythm Berryman uses in his readings.  So I’m going to ignore the poet’s literal voice for now, until I get more comfortable.  I’ve run across a number of poets whose readings rattle me because their physical voice seems so detached from what i hear in my head as I read.  Berryman is doing that to me. 

As one who reads for pleasure, I get to indulge all sorts of loves and opinions my professors tried to train out of me.  Hawwhawwhaww–you can’t stop me from liking things just because I do, so there.  And I’ve got to say, Berryman picked the right way to open if he wants to win me over.  Because it’s all about ME.  Ok, of course it’s not about me, but the first dream-song is very pleasing to me.  Both the woolen lover simile and the sycamore pleased me, tree-hugging wool-head that I am.  And I’m loving the switch from post-modern jazz-inspired boom-chicking along the lines to this gorgeous bit of lyric:
Hard on the land wears the strong sea
and empty grows every bed.
This is a man with tools and technique.  I expected the jazz.  I didn’t expect the ballad.

Dreamsong 4 got me good.  I love men who really love womanliness.  It’s that simple.  And here we have a lusty man admitting that his desires go too far.  The closing beats make it:
Where did it all go wrong? There ought to be a law against Henry
–Mr Bones: there is.
Nuff said.

And then to #13.  The lyricism and rhythm are again lovely, of course, but I also appreciate the vulnerability.  This breaking down of bravado. 
God bless Henry.  He lived like a rat,
with a thatch of hair on his head
in the beginning.
Henry was not a coward.  Much.
He never deserted anything; instead
he stuck, when things like pity were thinning.

So may be Henry was a human being.
Maybe he was.  A cornered rat, hated by God.  Berryman released this knowing that his audience would assume he was Henry.  He was Henry.  I guess I find that kind of nakedness before an audience of any kind brave, and risky. 

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