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John Berryman (John Allyn Smith, Jr.) was born on 25 October, 1914 in McAlester, Oklahoma, US, is an American poet and scholar (1914–1972). Discover John Berryman's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is he in this year and how he spends money? Also learn how he earned most of networth at the age of 58 years old?

Popular As John Allyn Smith, Jr.
Occupation Poet
Age 58 years old
Zodiac Sign Scorpio
Born 25 October 1914
Birthday 25 October
Birthplace McAlester, Oklahoma, US
Date of death 1972
Died Place Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
Nationality United States

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 25 October. He is a member of famous poet with the age 58 years old group.

John Berryman Height, Weight & Measurements

At 58 years old, John Berryman height not available right now. We will update John Berryman's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

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Who Is John Berryman's Wife?

His wife is Eileen Simpson (m. 1942-1956) Ann Levine (m. 1956-1959) Kate Donahue (m. 1961)

Family
Parents Not Available
Wife Eileen Simpson (m. 1942-1956) Ann Levine (m. 1956-1959) Kate Donahue (m. 1961)
Sibling Not Available
Children Not Available

John Berryman Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is John Berryman worth at the age of 58 years old? John Berryman’s income source is mostly from being a successful poet. He is from United States. We have estimated John Berryman's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
Salary in 2023 Under Review
House Not Available
Cars Not Available
Source of Income poet

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Timeline

1914

John Allyn McAlpin Berryman (born John Allyn Smith, Jr.; October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar.

He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in the "confessional" school of poetry.

His best-known work is The Dream Songs.

John Berryman was born on October 25, 1914, in McAlester, Oklahoma, where he was raised until the age of ten, when his father, John Smith, a banker, and his mother, Martha (also known as Peggy), a schoolteacher, moved to Florida.

1926

In 1926, in Clearwater, Florida, when Berryman was 11 years old, his father shot and killed himself.

Smith was jobless at the time, and he and Martha were filing for divorce.

Berryman was haunted by his father's death for the rest of his life and wrote about his struggle to come to terms with it in much of his poetry.

In "Dream Song #143", he wrote, "That mad drive [to commit suicide] wiped out my childhood. I put him down/while all the same on forty years I love him/stashed in Oklahoma/besides his brother Will".

In "Dream Song #145", he also wrote of his father:

Similarly, in Dream Song #384, Berryman wrote:

After his father's death at the rear entrance to Kipling Arms, where the Smiths rented an apartment, the poet's mother, within months, married John Angus McAlpin Berryman in New York City.

The poet was renamed John Allyn McAlpin Berryman.

Berryman's mother also changed her first name from Peggy to Jill.

Although his stepfather later divorced his mother, Berryman and his stepfather stayed on good terms.

With both his mother and stepfather working, his mother decided to send him to the South Kent School, a private boarding school in Connecticut.

Berryman then attended Columbia College, where he was president of the Philolexian Society, joined the Boar's Head Society, edited The Columbia Review, and studied under the literary scholar and poet Mark Van Doren.

Berryman later credited Van Doren with sparking his interest in writing poetry seriously.

For two years, Berryman also studied overseas at Clare College, Cambridge, on a Kellett Fellowship from Columbia.

1936

He graduated in 1936.

1940

Berryman's early work formed part of a volume titled Five Young American Poets, published by New Directions in 1940.

One of the other young poets included in the book was Randall Jarrell.

1942

Berryman published some of this early verse in his first book, Poems, in 1942.

His first mature collection of poems, The Dispossessed, appeared six years later, published by William Sloane Associates.

The book received largely negative reviews from poets like Jarrell, who wrote, in The Nation, that Berryman was "a complicated, nervous, and intelligent [poet]" whose work was too derivative of W. B. Yeats.

Berryman later concurred with this assessment of his early work, saying, "I didn't want to be like Yeats; I wanted to be Yeats."

In October 1942, Berryman married Eileen Mulligan (later Simpson) in a ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral, with Van Doren as his best man.

The couple moved to Beacon Hill, and Berryman lectured at Harvard.

1947

In 1947, Berryman started an affair with a married woman named Chris Haynes, documented in a long sonnet sequence that he refrained from publishing in part because that would have revealed the affair to his wife.

1950

In 1950, Berryman published a biography of the fiction writer and poet Stephen Crane, whom he greatly admired.

1953

The marriage ended in 1953 (the divorce was formalized in 1956), when Simpson finally grew weary of Berryman's affairs and acting as "net-holder" during his self-destructive personal crises.

1956

The book was followed by his next significant poem, Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1956), which featured illustrations by the artist Ben Shahn and was Berryman's first poem to receive "national attention" and a positive response from critics.

Edmund Wilson wrote that it was "the most distinguished long poem by an American since T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land."

1959

When Homage to Mistress Bradstreet and Other Poems was published in 1959, the poet Conrad Aiken praised the book's shorter poems, which he found superior to "Homage to Mistress Bradstreet".

1964

Despite his third book of verse's relative success, Berryman's great poetic breakthrough occurred with 77 Dream Songs (1964).

1965

It won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and solidified Berryman's standing as one of the most important poets of the post-World War II generation that included Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, and Delmore Schwartz.

Soon thereafter, the press began to give Berryman a great deal of attention, as did arts organizations and even the White House, which sent him an invitation to dine with President Lyndon B. Johnson (though Berryman declined because he was in Ireland at the time).

1967

He eventually published the work, Berryman's Sonnets, in 1967.

It includes over one hundred sonnets.

Berryman was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1967, and that same year Life magazine ran a feature story on him.

1982

Simpson memorialized her time with Berryman and his circle in her 1982 book Poets in Their Youth.