Originally published: New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969.

Less than a year before his death in 1972, John Berryman signed a contract with his publisher for a book of prose, The Freedom of the Poet, for which he had made a selection from his published and unpublished writings. In his draft of a prefatory note, he acknowledged the influence of Eliot, Blackmur, Pound, and Empson on his critical thought, pointing out that "my interest in critical theory has been slight," and concluding: "But I have also borne in mind throughout: remarks by Franz Kafka ('the story came out of me like a real birth, covered with slime and blood') and Joseph Conrad: 'All the great creations of literature have been symbolic, and in that way have gained in complexity, in power, in depth and in beauty.'" There are thirty-six pieces in all, including not only such justly famous writings on Elizabethan figures as "Shakespeare at Thirty" and "Thomas Nashe and The Unfortunate Traveller" but also "Shakespeare's Last Word" and "Marlowe's Damnations," published for the first time; essays on American writers like Dreiser, Crane, James, Lardner, Fitzgerald, and Bellow, and on poets like Hardy, Pound, Ransom, Eliot, Thomas, Lowell, and Williams; unpublished essays on Cervantes, Whitman's "Song of Myself," Conrad, and Anne Frank; "Thursday Out," an account of a trip to India, and stories, published and unpublished, including "Wash Far Away," "The Lovers," "All Their Colours Exiled," and "The Imaginary Jew." The poet's "freedom" in Berryman's definition is not license but escape, release--even death. The title piece--the second part of his essay on The Tempest--confirms this with his statement about Prospero: "This longing--for release, for freedom--...is neither disillusioned nor frightening. It is radiant and desirous." This final book which John Berryman himself prepared exhibits his erudition and scholarship, his critical insight and empathy, and a first-rate poet's powerful prose.

A Love affair in the poet's youth is depicted in the style of Petrarchism.

Typescript of the work published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1999. Included in the papers of Robert Giroux located at Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana.

This volume represents the first appearance in paperback of one of America's most outstanding poets, John Berryman. It contains, besides the long title poem, Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, the major portion of Short Poems; a selection from The Dispossessed, which drew on two earlier collections; some poems from His Thought Made Pockets & The Plane Buckt; and one poem from Sonnets. "It seems to me the most distinguished long poem by an American since The Waste Land." - Edmund Wilson

American poet John Berryman's long sequence, The Dream Songs, ranges in tone from the ruefully comic to the blisteringly angry, to the tragic - sometimes within the compass of a single poem.

Fifty-nine lyrical works in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet describes the creative process, politics, and the struggle of maintaining life.

Edited by John Haffenden With a Preface by Robert Giroux John Berryman, one of America's most talented modern poets, was winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 77 Dream Songs and the National Book Award for His Toy, His Dream, His Rest. He gained a reputation as an innovator whose bold literary adventures were tempered by exacting discipline. Berryman was also an active, prolific, and perceptive critic whose own experience as a major poet served to his advantage. Berryman was a protégé of Mark Van Doren, the great Shakespearean scholar, and the Bard's work remained one of his most abiding passions--he would devote a lifetime to writing about it. His voluminous writings on the subject have now been collected and edited by John Haffenden.

This volume brings together all of John Berryman's poetry, except for his epic The Dream Songs, ranging from his earliest unpublished poem (1934) to those written in the last months of his life (1972). John Berryman: Collected Poems 1937-1971 is a definitive edition of one of America's most distinguished poets.