1972 John Berryman, the American poet, was born John Allyn Smith Jr. His father, John Allyn Smith Sr., committed suicide when young John was twelve. He took the surname of his mother’s second husband. After a long battle with alcoholism, Berryman seemed to have come to terms with his addiction in 1970 – writing a memoir, Recovery, recording the fact. Having been clean and sober for a year and a half, during which time a daughter was born to him and his wife, he followed his father’s example and killed himself.
The event is vividly recorded by his biographer, Paul Mariani. It was a Friday and Berryman had passed an unsettled night. He told his wife he was going to his office at the University of Minneapolis, where he had a teaching appointment. It was bitterly cold:
Instead of going to his office, he walked out onto the upper level of the Washington Avenue Bridge … Three quarters of the way across, he stopped and stared down. A hundred feet below and to his right rode the river: narrow, gray, and half frozen … He climbed onto the chest-high metal railing and balanced himself. Several students inside the walkway stopped what they were doing when they saw him and stared in disbelief. He made a gesture as if waving, but he did not look back … Three seconds later his body exploded against the knoll, recoiled from the earth, then rolled gently down the incline. The campus police were the first to arrive and found a package of [Tareyton cigarettes], some change, and a blank check with the name Berryman on it.