"One's ideas about poetry come from one's home and one's school, as well as from society as a whole, he [Berryman] told his audience, and such forces tended to tame poetry's awesome power. The truth was that poetry was 'too primitive and too realistic' for most Americans, who actually felt nervous before its nakedness. The best poetry made use of the basic rhythms of human life, so that it was a counterforce, a rebuke to those forces that threatened to dehumanize people. It cost everything to make a poem, which was a lot more than most people were willing to give to hear its true music." (339)
Mariani, Paul. The Life of John Berryman. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1990.
No comments:
Post a Comment