 | |
| Author | John Berryman |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | American poetry, confessional poetry |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux |
Publication date | 1969 |
| Publication place | United States |
The Dream Songs is a compilation of two books of poetry, 77 Dream Songs (1964) and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest (1968), by the American poet John Berryman. According to Berryman's "Note" to The Dream Songs, "This volume combines 77 Dream Songs and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, comprising Books I through VII of a poem whose working title, since 1955, has been The Dream Songs."[1] In total, the work consists of 385 individual poems.
The book is listed by the American Academy of Poets as one of its Groundbreaking Books of the 20th century.[2] The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry calls The Dream Songs "[Berryman's] major work" and notes that "[the poems] form, like his friend Robert Lowell's Notebook, a poetic journal, and represent, half phantasmagorically, the changes in Berryman's mood and attitude."[3]
The dream song form consists of three stanzas, divided into six lines per stanza. The poems are in free verse with irregular rhyme schemes. The songs are all numbered but only some have individual titles.
- ^ Berryman, John. The Dream Songs. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. 1969.
- ^ "The Dream Songs | Academy of American Poets".
- ^ Ellman, Richard and Robert O'Clair. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1973.