This is about some advice given by poet John Berryman to student poet W.S. Merwin, and the poem Merwin later wrote about it. I share the poem here because there are elements of that advice that might speak to more of us than just the poets, writers and artists. But first some reflections on poets and mentors, especially Merwin and Berryman.
I have focused before on the mentoring influence of great poets on the work of great poets who came after them. But to be distinguished from the powerful and influential way that the poetry and prose of Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke across the centuries to Mary Oliver, is the influence of John Berryman on W.S. Merwin. Only 13 years older, and yet a generation apart, he was teacher and mentor to Merwin at Princeton. And how do we know the depth of the influence and regard felt for their respective mentors, regardless of the proximity of time or place? In the cases of Oliver and Merwin, both wrote insightful, honoring introductions—tributes really—to recently published editions of the work of Emerson and Berryman, respectively, and made reference to them in their own poetry. (And yes, such a poem by W.S. Merwin will follow.)
Berryman’s poetry can sometimes be difficult and often doesn’t appeal to me. Some would say that the strength of his poetry was uneven over the course of his career, with some earning little praise and some earning him the Pulitzer Prize. Most would agree, I think, that foremost among Berryman’s body of work is The Dream Songs, the related collection of poems which Merwin says, “suddenly arrived like a force of nature, unique and new.” But yet, I don’t see much of Berryman in Merwin’s work, earlier or later. Some might say Merwin’s work can also be a little difficult at times, but I don’t see that either, at least not in the same way.
But reading his introduction to The Dream Songs, you cannot doubt Merwin’s high opinion and importance placed on Berryman’s poetry, even among the work of an extraordinary generation of poets: “Berryman’s poetry, I believe, is among the major achievements of his gifted and bedeviled generation, and The Dream Songs—intimate, elusive, wild, unbearable, beautiful—are its summation.”
So, Merwin offers us a poem sharing and honoring some of the advice given him by Berryman about pursuing his art, about confidence and patience, about believing in yourself and your work, even when affirmation and assurance from others is in short supply. But yes, I find wisdom and direction here that speaks to all who feel a vocational calling or personal gift that begs for expression in a world that is largely indifferent to our decisions and pursuits. It’s the gift one Pulitzer-Prize-winner-to-be gave to another.
BERRYMAN*
I will tell you what he told me
In the years just after the war
as we then called
the second world war
don’t lose your arrogance yet he said
you can do that when you’re older
lose it too soon and you may
merely replace it with vanity
just one time he suggested
changing the usual order
of the same words in a line of verse
why point out a thing twice
he suggested I pray to the Muse
get down on my knees and pray
right there in the corner and he
said he meant it literally
it was in the days before the beard
and the drink but he was deep
in tides of his own through which he sailed
chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop
he was far older than the dates allowed for
much older than I was he was in his thirties
he snapped down his nose with an accent
I think he had affected in England
As for publishing he advised me
to paper my walls with rejection slips
his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled
with the vehemence of his views about poetry
he said the great presence
that permitted everything and transmuted it
in poetry was passion
passion was genius and he praised movement and invention
I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can’t
you can’t you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write
I find in this a reminder that sometimes you just must do it (whatever it is), and do it with passion, because that is who you are, because it’s what you’re called to do, because it’s your journey. And you know it because it speaks to you from some unknown place at the core of your identity, and that is assurance enough. To ignore it is to become in some important way lost to who you are—and to leave a hole in the affairs of your time where you and your work were supposed to be.
*from Migration: New & Selected Poems, by M.S. Merwin (2005)
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