Chels

I was first made aware of John Berryman’s Dream Songs during my Master’s degree, studying confessional poetry. It was a movement I wasn’t aware of, and while I found some of the suggested poems a little hit-and-miss for my personal tastes, the concept of confessional poetry was really interesting to me.

Confessional poetry was a bit of a groundbreaking movement in the mid 20th – it certainly shifted the perspective of what exactly constituted poetry. Of course, the modernist movement of the turn of the century gave way to experimental poems and pushing boundaries of form, but the postmodernist confessional poems solidified free verse as a legitimate and popular style. While it was primarily an American movement, its popularity made the transatlantic journey, and it was quite far from the British poetry tradition – while we have a rich history of poetry, spanning many forms and genres, we hadn’t really seen free verse before. 

Free verse, to me, is really groundbreaking as a form – it breaks down a lot of the barriers people perceive when it comes to engaging with poetry (whether reading or writing). Students often think writing poetry is too hard as there are too many rigid rules to follow. Free verse does away with rhyme schemes and meter – there are, in theory, no rules. Of course, this doesn’t mean that every free verse poem is good – it still requires skill from writers, but the removal of rigid structure allows for more freedom to play with words and sounds, to create a unique voice, with lines that aren’t bound by the number of stressed or unstressed syllables. Still today, free verse is the preferred poetic form for many writers because of the freedom it allows, and the room for creativity and experimentation.

Confessional poetry wasn’t only revolutionary in form, it also saw a shift in tone and content. Of course, poetry has been an outlet for feelings of both joy and distress from the beginning, but in the 1950s and 60s, confessional poets seemed to bring a new layer of honesty. Many of the poets most associated with the movement, like Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Robert Lowell, famously struggled with mental illness. Their poetry offered a frank insight into their mindset, and they were incredibly personal, depicting dark thoughts and traumatic memories. Free verse, and the lack of constrictions by form, meant a bigger freedom to depict deeply personal thoughts, and the confessional poets used this to their advantage – confessional poems are often cited as resonant and impactful to readers who also struggle with their mental health.

For me, it was John Berryman’s Dream Songs that resonated. I was immediately drawn to their tone – looking back on my notes, I described Life, friends, is boring as ‘almost comforting even in its pessimism.’ The collection of poems follow the Henry character, and while some interpret Henry as an extension of Berryman, others see him as a separate entity. The poems deal with sexuality, divorce, alcoholism, the American identity and uniquely American struggles, but most prominently, with mental health. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the poems, and some are quite disjointed – deliberately – making them difficult to parse. Some, however, are more explicit than others.

The final stanza in particular struck me as particularly resonant to the uncertainty that comes with OCD. I should note that, while many of Berryman’s struggles are well known, it was never clear if he suffered with OCD. The inability to trust one’s own thoughts, the imagined violence, and the repeated checking – it all felt far too familiar. 

29 is the most direct poem in terms of relating to the mindset that OCD can create, but once that door is opened, you start to notice hints in other poems. Dream Song 28, Snow Line, ends

It really captures the feeling of dejectedness – I see no end. OCD can be an incredibly isolating experience, it’s difficult to articulate the exhaustion that can come from constantly battling with one’s own brain without appearing utterly dejected and hopeless. It’s true – some days, you do see no end. 

The Dream Songs often refer to Henry as a murderer, though it isn’t clear if he really has committed a crime. This blurring of the line between truth and lies feels eerily resonant to the false memories that OCD often brings. It reflects the self doubt and the ability to convince yourself of your own wrongdoing, without any evidence, and, in fact, with evidence to the contrary.It’s unclear if Berryman intended to portray elements of OCD in his Dream Songs, but many of the lines included feel familiar to those of us who have experienced it. Confessional poetry is not just confessional to the writers, but to the readers who find themselves represented on the page. Reading the Dream Songs, and, in fact, works by other confessional poets, can be a deeply personal and intimate experience, one which can be both uncomfortable and enlightening.