Love & Fame

by John Berryman

Book Overview

Berryman's most autobiographical poetry, his last major work published prior to his suicide. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374192332
• ISBN13: 9780374192334
• Release Date: January 1970
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Wit & Pain

"Love & Fame" is an amazing book. It may be a simpler, less ambitious work than "77 Dream Songs", but it is still an extraordinary volume of poems. Hilarious and sad, it is a disjointed autobiography conveyed in verse, and Berryman has some great stories to tell. However, though this work is more narrative than the Dream Songs, it never gets boring. Berryman is always doing something surprising with his language. Berryman boasts about his sexual conquests and reveals his utter (soon to be suicidal) despair. The pious "Addresses to the Lord" at the end of the book are a little hard to believe considering how proud the author is of his misbehavior, but even those poems are interesting and well worth savoring. I would also recommend Paul Mariani's biography of Berryman entitled "Dream Song". The story of this poet's life is inspiring, frightening, devastating, and beautiful.