{"id":78534,"date":"2014-10-24T17:30:48","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T21:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=78534"},"modified":"2016-10-25T08:30:04","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T12:30:04","slug":"berryman-and-yeats-light-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/24\/berryman-and-yeats-light-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Berryman and Yeats Light Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow marks the centenary of John Berryman\u2019s birth.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"berryman-j\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Craven_a_virginia_s_20_h_white_red_with_a_cat_jamaica\"<\/a>I went in and asked for Mr. Yeats. Very much like asking, \u201cIs Mr. Ben Jonson here?\u201d And he came down. He was much taller than I expected, and haggard. Big, though, big head, rather wonderful looking in a sort of a blunt, patrician kind of way, but there was something shrunken also. He told me he was just recovering from an illness. He was very courteous, and we went in to tea. At a certain point, I had a cigarette, and I asked him if he would like one. To my great surprise he said yes. So I gave him a Craven \u201cA\u201d and then lit it for him, and I thought, Immortality is mine! From now on it’s just a question of reaping the fruits of my effort. He did most of the talking. I asked him a few questions. He did not ask me any questions about myself, although he was extremely courteous and very kind. At one point he said, \u201cI have reached the age when my daughter can beat me at croquet,\u201d and I thought, Hurrah, he’s human! I made notes on the interview afterward, which I have probably lost. One comment in particular I remember. He said, \u201cI never revise now\u201d\u2014you know how much he revised his stuff\u2014\u201cbut in the interests of a more passionate syntax.\u201d Now that struck me as a very good remark. I have no idea what it meant and still don’t know, but the longer I think about it, the better I like it. He recommended various books to me by his friend, the liar, Gogarty, and I forget who else. The main thing was just the presence and existence of my hero.<\/p>\n

\u2014John Berryman, The Art of Poetry No. 16<\/a>, 1972<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"FullSizeRender\"<\/a>

An ad for Berryman\u2018s books from our Winter 1972 issue, in which his Art of Poetry interview appeared.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow marks the centenary of John Berryman\u2019s birth. I went in and asked for Mr. Yeats. Very much like asking, \u201cIs Mr. Ben Jonson here?\u201d And he came down. He was much taller than I expected, and haggard. Big, though, big head, rather wonderful looking in a sort of a blunt, patrician kind of way, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9064],"tags":[14238,10031,1464,158,1132,15785,6487,165,6695,7519,8928],"class_list":["post-78534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quote-unquote","tag-advertisements","tag-anniversaries","tag-cigarettes","tag-encounters","tag-interviews","tag-issue-53","tag-john-berryman","tag-poetry","tag-smoking","tag-the-art-of-poetry","tag-w-b-yeats"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Berryman and Yeats Light Up<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The poet on meeting William Butler Yeats for the first time.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/24\/berryman-and-yeats-light-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Berryman and Yeats Light Up by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"October 24, 2014 \u2013 Tomorrow marks the centenary of John Berryman\u2019s birth.I went in and asked for Mr. Yeats. 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