Poetry Debate

So, this round is poetry analysis! I will be analyzing my favorite poem of all time, "Dream Song 14," by John Berryman. The link to my source can be found below. I will post a copy of the poem first, and then post my analysis. Also, if anyone is wondering how this fits my theme of "loss," there is the loss of the "dog" that Berryman discusses and which I shall also discuss, as well as a greater loss of meaningful humor, which I will also discuss in my analysis. DREAM SONG 14 Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) "Ever to confess you"re bored means you have no Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as achilles, who loves people and valiant art, which bores me. And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag and somehow a dog has taken itself & its tail considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag. ANALYSIS The poem begins with two simple, declarative sentences, one informing us of an inherent truth about the world (i.e., that the world is boring), and the other then notifying us that it's not acceptable to reveal this truth. The way in which Berryman casually throws the truth out there despite his later admission that it's not something one ought to say establishes early on the insouciant tone with which Berryman will make his point. He takes aim at the veneer of conventionality and propriety that we often adopt in our daily lives, and mocks us for it. His next two lines merely solidify this mordant tone--droning on about the supposedly serious, un-boring aspects of life in a completely lifeless fashion. The incurious way in which he discusses them, almost as if to dismiss them, stands in stark and ironic contrast to his unfelt claim that these things add energy to our lives. The excerpt about his mother is equally and drily sardonic. His use of the term "repeatingly" implies bored exasperation--in fact, every line in his first stanza is underpinned with tonal boredom. Interestingly, the way in which Berryman constructs his lines efficaciously draws attention to this neat tonal effect. His ending his second and third lines both end on the word "yearning," a concept that he, as already noted, has treated with dismissiveness. By ending the lines on that word, he is emphasizing the term, which in turn calls attention to his feelings toward it. Similarly, by closing the fifth line with the word "bored," he is emphasizing a running motif throughout the piece; just as by ending the sixth line on "no," he forces us to pause, which underscores the word in the context of the phrase he interrupted. In other words, it would be as if he had written, "you have NO inner resources." This same trick is the applied to the transition between lines 7 and 8. The discussion about inner resources itself is quite interesting, insofar as, if one carries the blandly dismissive tone through from stanza to stanza--as I think one ought--it seems to mock the idea that boredom necessarily comes from within, and isn't imposed from without. Berryman then, in amusing and succinct fashion, vilipends "peoples" and "great literature" and the whinging of humanity (that is to say, the tendency of people to complain pointless about things that are either to trivial to merit such complaint or are beyond their control.) Berryman, in the same vein, deprecates "achilles" in masterful fashion. By not capitalizing his name, Berryman emphasizes how little significance or value he actually attributes to Achilles; moreover, by treating such a famed mythological hero in such, not quite contemptuous but certainly unimpressed, terms, he is suggesting that these kinds of fanciful thoughts, these normally exciting myths and legends, are somehow hollow and lacking in any real intellectual depth, making them, to him, just one more vapidly tiresome aspect of life he has to suffer. Berryman only adds to this suggestion when he mockingly refers to those myths and legends, and, frankly, any hero-story of that ilk, as "valiant art." The final stanza is perhaps the most interesting because, as an old teacher of mine once put it, it seems like the LSD began kicking in. His mention of "gin" seems to imply that he wants us to believe that, at this point, boredom has forced him to drink for excitement and entertainment. I am not so sure this is the correct interpretation, though it's one I have commonly witnessed. My issues are twofold, firstly, that he seems to dismiss the gin, along with so many other things, as boring two, and, secondly, that I think the gin reference is meant as a way to ask us to open our minds more so than it is him saying he has resorted to drink. But these issues aside (both views are plausible explanations), the 14th line--oddly enough for "Dream Song 14"--represents a turning point in the poem, from Berryman whinging (something he critiques others of doing), to him switching into something more abstract, i.e. an apparent digression about a dog. The dog has, Berryman writes, "taken itself...considerably away" from him, back to the "mountains or sea or sky." This is critical, because it evokes an image of the first stanza, which referenced the sea and sky as supposedly "yearning," or exciting, places. The dog, in its departure, leaves behind Berryman. Again, there are two plausible interpretations of this portion of the poem, as far as I can ascertain. The first is that Berryman did intimate he was resorting to drink with the gin comment, and that the dog is his sober, rational mind departing from him as he slips into drunkenness. The best case for this interpretation is found in the final word of the poem, "wag." A dog wagging connotes that the dog is happy. By suggesting that the dog left behind "me, wag," Berryman is suggesting that the dog left him in a happier state than when the dog was there. Certainly, inebriation has the ability to do that. Also, the use of the word "somehow" brings to mind the idea that people in a intoxicated state have ideas just randomly conjured up in their minds. This too fits with a supports this first interpretation. The second possibility, in my mind, is that the dog represents Berryman's sense of fun, his whimsical side, leaving him, and that it left him behind as he is now: bored. The use of the term "wag" is just dry sarcasm, almost caustically making fun of the idea that he has any funny, any "wag," left in him. This would be consistent with his overall tone in the piece. Part of what I appreciate about this piece is the ambiguity of this last stanza, and that it is open for interpretation; it presents a literary puzzle that I find anything but boring. The primary takeaway, thematically, that we get from "Dream Song 14" is that he finds the world lacking in intellectual depth, and is thus merely characterized by superficial forms of entertainment. At its heart, this world is truly an exemplar of vapidity. But, Berryman goes about delivering this message with a trademark dry, if somewhat mordant, wit that makes the piece amusing, despite the darkness of its message. That itself provides an interesting question to the reader: is the entertainment one derives from reading this poem superficial and "boring," or is it something truly worthwhile? Perhaps we'll never know, but that, friends, is the conundrum Berryman leaves us with, in this truly amazing example of his work.