Selected Poems

"Staggering, swaggering, intoxicating": John Berryman achieved a poetrywhere (in the words of editor Kevin Young) "Protagonists search for a loveror friend, ancestor or listener, with a recklessness that only Whitmanallowed himself. . . . Berryman becomes Everyman attempting, falling shortof, and often achieving greatness." Young's selection, the first newselection of Berryman's poems in over 30 years, encompasses the formalaccomplishments of his early work, epitomized in the masterful Homage toMistress Bradstreet, the explosive and mesmerizing diction of Dream Songs,and his wrenching religious poems. Kevin Young's poetry and essays haveappeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Paris Review,and elsewhere, and have been featured on NPR's "All Things Considered."