#100

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/john-berryman/3544

The language in DS 100 is straightforward, a song in praise of the poet’s mother and her strength. Much is made in The Dream Songs about the suicide of B.’s father, though there is actually reason to believe it might have been something else. He was shot through the heart, and died instantly, but oddly there were no powder burns on the body, which would have to be present from a self-inflicted wound. The suspicion that it was a murder apparently isn’t an idle one, but there had been a rash of suicides in Florida at the time and the police didn’t pursue it. The two main suspects would be his wife or her lover, who she eventually married. (B.’s father’s lover had taken all the money she could get from him and run away back to Cuba, so she was in the clear.) The death happened on the day his parents' divorce was to be finalized. Much drama was involved, whatever happened, including a hysterical screaming match the night before. Nowhere in The Dream Songs does this possibility of murder arise, though. One critic notes that the closure a murder permits, as opposed to a suicide, wouldn’t have given rise to the kind of strung-out anguish that the poet drew from. He said in an interview, “The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. I hope to be nearly crucified.” I don’t know. I’ve run into this kind of claim before. It’s almost a cliché. There’s something to be said for the artistic stimulus of happiness too, and frankly, melodrama bores me a little bit. I mean, sure, there are passions and adrenaline, screaming and yelling, and the body gets all revved up. Obviously, cultivating a lifelong emotional ordeal worked for him. Who am I to argue?

But, if it was murder, and if his mother was involved? That puts a different spin on “the goodness of this woman / in her great strength, in her hope superhuman,” doesn’t it? That gives rise to a situational irony on the woman’s “hope” that B. pretty clearly didn’t intend in this poem. Oh well, never mind. Nobody’s mom is perfect. (Except, mine’s pretty close.)