Confessional poetry is a style of poetry that came about in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s that has been described as poetry "of the personal." Almost all confessional poems are autobiographical. This movement of poetry had topics like mental illness, sexuality, and suicide. Confessional free verse poetry became the popular approach in the second half of the 20th-century. This movement is self explanatory and is about people writing about the problems they or someone else has no matter what it is. This movement allowed people to speak out and feel confortable about it and to no be judged about it which is hard to do now at days.
John Berryman was born John Smith in McAlester, Oklahoma, in 1914. He received an undergraduate degree from Columbia College in 1936 and attended Cambridge University on a fellowship. He taught at Wayne State University in Detroit and went on to occupy posts at Harvard and Princeton. From 1955 until his death in 1972, he was a professor at the University of Minnesota.
Poem: Dream Song 1
Poet: John Berryman
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15206
Poem Summary:
The poem Dream Song 1 by John Berryman is about a boy named Henry who is truly unhappy about something. He is upset and what ever happened to him will change him forever. I the poem is says he is open for the world to see and it is hard to believe he had survived it. This poem states that Henry or someone else should have done something to help him but noone did. Berryman says that Henry was pried upon which means something very important to Hnery was taken from him and he will never feel the happiness he once felt.
Poem: Dream Song 1
Poet: John Berryman
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15206
Poem Summary:
The poem Dream Song 1 by John Berryman is about a boy named Henry who is truly unhappy about something. He is upset and what ever happened to him will change him forever. I the poem is says he is open for the world to see and it is hard to believe he had survived it. This poem states that Henry or someone else should have done something to help him but noone did. Berryman says that Henry was pried upon which means something very important to Hnery was taken from him and he will never feel the happiness he once felt.
Literary Elements
This poem contains alliteration when it says "It was the thought that they thought they". Also a simile when it compares the world to a woolen lover using the word like. I also belive allusion is used a lot by the poet with constant direct references to Henry.