So…I decided to talk about “The Dream Songs”… So before it begins there is always the excerpt describing the story.  The Dream songs “is essentially about an imaginary character (not the poet, not me) named Henry, a white American in early middle age sometimes in blackface, who has suffered an irreversible loss and talks about himself sometimes in the first person, sometimes in the third, sometimes in the second; he has a friend, never named. Who addresses him as Mr. Bones and variants thereof.” (Berryman 1129)

     Berryman is very closely related to Henry, at least in my own opinion. I feel that this was Berryman giving himself a home on paper. Perhaps his way of making himself concrete with all of the things he has already known of himself in his head. I mean Berryman had suffered several losses in his life, his father dying, his friend dying from cancer, being bullied. 

     Things like this can really alter a person’s life and steer them in very odd directions. Someone can be one way for years and then one small thing can happen to them and they can no longer be the person that they had once been. Berryman had endured such an intense loss at such a young age that he cleaved to the pain and darkness that life can provide. 

     I admit I did Google and this was something interesting that I found ““There is a fiendish resemblance,” Berryman has said, “between Henry and me.” Like Berryman, Henry is a poet, teacher, heavy drinker, and incessant needer whose father shot himself when his son was twelve years old. ( http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/27542549?uid=3739648&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=56000401343)

 

     One line that I really liked was “Where did it all go wrong? There ought to be a law against Henry. –Mr. Bones: there is.” (Berryman 1130) I feel like Berryman is giving us personal insight. All of his thoughts and feelings warped, out of control. What does he deserve as a human being? What is natural to want, what is natural at all? You see Henry restricting himself, a law, and then with the reply “there is”, of course there is because Henry has placed it on himself, he created it. 

     When I read that Berryman committed suicide, I felt like he had betrayed himself and Henry. Berryman had killed himself just like his father had. This single act from his father had consumed his life and now he recreated it. 

     Ah! Too many thoughts! Sorry if that was too deep for anyone. It wasn’t meant to be. Mainly my mind racing with all of these reasons why?