“In the Dream Songs we are at the mercy, as Henry is, of fantasy—of women, of death, of drink. If indeed dreams, the poems seem to emerge out of the restless boozy sleep of the alcoholic, full of fits and starts; they provide an odd mix of scrambling, sitting, spattering rhythm and underlying monotone…We the audience are captive to the poet’s mesmerizing performance, in equal parts seduced by and coerced into collusion with the poetry, laughing uneasily with Berryman at death or hate or desires that had always seemed unspeakable. Not a comfortable vantage as a reader, but one that revels in the gall that the writing itself demands.” —Kevin Young, from his introduction to John Berryman: Selected Poems