The year of 1972, broke my bones and skull Okkervil River – John Allyn Smith Sails
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A reference to the suicide of the poet John Berryman, who killed himself by jumping off the Washington Avenue bridge in 1972.
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“Bracken” is a genus of large ferns that could be used for cover as suggested by Sheff here.
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Though Sheff is likely just describing a camping trip here, he evokes religious imagery and language here (“altars” here and below “gods”), suggesting that the experience was spiritual in nature.
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The “fireside chats” were a series of radio broadcasts by President Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944. They were an innovative use of the new technologies of mass communication at the time. President Obama continues the tradition through a weekly video address.
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Source: U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943, pp. 355-365.
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Though Carruth did indeed teach at Syracuse, his poetry is well-known for its evocation of the people and places of northern Vermont.
Saunders currently teaches at Syracuse and chooses “Syracuse poet” as a way of exposing the connection.
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The suggestion here is that “failures of kindness” may be natural, a part of evolution. Charles Darwin is, of course, known for outlining his theory of evolution in The Origin of the Species.
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Sheff here transitions into quoting the melody of “Sloop John B,” a traditional Bahamian folk song made famous by The Beach Boys.
While Sheff quotes the melody, he changes the lyrics to fit the narrative of Berryman’s life and death.
The line “This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on” ends each verse of the original song, which recounted the revelries of a particularly debaucherous crew:
In this line, Berryman commits to his suicide. Life is “the worst trip I’ve ever been on”
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In The Dream Songs, the main character is Henry Bones who, Berryman remarks, is in blackface according to the minstrel tradition. There is also an interlocutor that speaks with a faux-African accent similar to the one used in the original song.
This line is actually playing on three meanings of “trip.” First is a voyage – that’s the meaning of trip in the real Sloop John B. Second is a hallucinogenic drug trip – even if not directly relevant to Berryman’s suicide, it’s hard to miss the drug connotation of “this is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.” Third, of course, is life itself, which is a trip that must inevitably come to an end. Unlike most, Berryman decided to end his trip prematurely.