More John Berryman: Syntax Boldly

The Power Line weblog is a three-man operation (a three-lawyer operation to be strictly accurate) mostly of a political bent and decidedly conservative.  (The site was prominently in the forefront in debunking the forged documents behind 60 Minutes' report on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, for example.)  Occasionally, one or another of the PowerLiners will veer in a cultural direction, as has happened today.

Scott Johnson, the Power Line triumvir who posts as "The Big Trunk," offers up a salute to John Berryman (accompanied by much dissing of fellow Minnesotan poet Robert Bly).  That post in turn links to a Berryman appreciation set to appear in tomorrow's Washington Post in Edward Hirsch's "Poet's Choice" column on the occasion of the new Selected Berryman that I mentioned below.  Hirsch kindly quotes one of my own favorite Berryman lines -- which I would have done myself if only the book weren't packed away at the moment -- the closing line of the very late poem, "King David Dances":

all the black same I dance my blue head off!