“ Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. ”
That memorable line popped up in my head today. I’m not that bored, but at other times I’ve thought I was.
The Dream Songs are centered on (and generally narrated by) the character Henry. Actually, here is a better explanation:
Who is the speaker? In a preface to The Dream Songs, Berryman wrote, “The poem … is essentially about an imaginary character (not the poet, not me) named Henry, in early middle age … who … talks about himself sometimes in the first person, sometimes in the third, sometimes even in the second; he has a friend, never named, who address him as Mr Bones and variants thereof.” It becomes obvious through his description that “Henry” and “Mr Bones” are one and the same, and that Henry is the primary speaker. A change in speaker, to the unnamed friend who addresses Henry as Mr Bones (or back to Henry), is signified by a dash, as in the last 2 lines of his fourth “Dream Song:” “There ought to be a law against Henry / -Mr. Bones: there is.” (from: here)
You can peruse some more Dream Songs here (although they’re not organized very well).
