John Berryman reads his Dream Song No. 26. You've probably never seen anyone read poetry like this before.

By Jack Brummet, Poetry Editor

I've never seen John Berryman read poetry before tonight, although Dream Songs is one of my favorite books of 20th century poetry, and I have read most of his other books of poetry, prose and fiction. 

This poem is scary, jangled, beautiful, elusive, creepy, and slangy with amazing rhythms and chiming internal rhyme. I've never seen anyone read poetry like this before.  It's riveting and disturbing, especially when you know the dénouement of his story: leaping from a bridge to his death in the Mississippi River five years after this.

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