John Berryman

Biography

John Berryman (1914 – 1972) was an American poet and professor at the University of Minnesota. His fourth poetry collection, 77 Dream Songs (FSG, 1964), was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Berryman continued adding to his collection, publishing another volume of dream songs titled His Toy, His Dream, His Rest (FSG, 1968), which won the National Book Award for Poetry and the Bollingen Prize. The following year, he published The Dream Songs (FSG, 1969), which combined his original 77 Dream Songs with His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, a total of nearly four hundred poems. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of American Poets in 1966 and served as a Chancellor from 1968 until his death.