week of october 20-24 Roripaugh and Berryman

The guest speaker Robert Roripaugh was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed listening to him speak and read some of his poetry. He sometimes had a strange way of reading his poetry. He would begin soft a slow and in an instant, all of a sudden, the pitch of his voice would rise and he would put emphasis into his lines, or even just one word. This emphasis could sometimes have been needed, but other times it seemed out of place. I enjoyed how you could hear the emotion when he read, regardless if it seemed odd at times. My favorite of his poems were when he was describing the Wyoming wilderness. The poem that took place in autumn and was about a tree with yellow leaves had to be the most enjoyable. I believe it was dedicated to his wife also, which made it feel that much more pleasant. I also enjoyed the reference he made to the hunting trip that he and Lee Ann went on when she was child. I had remembered from Lee Ann’s book Beyond Heart Mountain the poem entitled “Ningyo,” where it reads, “Some drunk men / drove by in a pickup / and yelled, Goddamn, / it’s a girl.” After listening o Robert Roripaugh speak, it made want to read more of his poetry, a sometime I hope the chance arrives.

Another aspect of last week’s class I would like to discuss is John Berryman and his Dream Songs. Reading over these poems several times gives you a realization of the troubled state John Berryman was in. It is hard to fully grasp what he was trying to convey in these poems because of the few that are available to us in the Norton Anthology. One poem that struck me is titled “Henry’s Understanding.” When you think of the time and place of John Berryman’s death, you can see the correlation in this poem. This poem was published in 1972, the same year of his death. Judging from the title the word understanding can mean an understanding of his life or possibly an understanding of death and suicide. This understanding comes “suddenly, unlike Bach, / & horribly, unlike Bach, it occurred to me / that one night, instead of warm pajamas, / I’d take off all my clothes / & cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff / into the terrible water & walk forever / under it out toward the island.” I’m not sure about the reference to Bach, but Berryman writes of going into the “terrible water.” When looking upon his death, Berryman jumped off of a bridge in Minneapolis. He also writes “ It only takes a few minutes to make a man. / A concentration upon now & here.” These two lines could mean a culmination of his entire life comes down to “now & here,” meaning the things he does at this point, his death, is what will make him. One line that confuses me is when he writes “walk forever / under it toward the island.” This line seems to convey feelings of being lost. Even after death Berryman still finds himself lost, walking forever towards what he wants, or who he wants to be. So, in turn, Henry’s understanding, isn’t an understanding at all.