Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky

New Collected Poems by Wendell Berry

In Wendell Berrys upcoming The New Collected Poems, the poet revisits for the first time his immensely popular Collected Poems, which The New York Times Book Review described as “a straight-forward search for a life connected to the soil, for marriage as a sacrament and family life” that “affirms a style that is resonant with the authentic,” and “[returns] American poetry to a Wordsworthian clarity of purpose.”

In The New Collected Poems, Berry reprints the nearly two hundred pieces in Collected Poems, along with the poems from his most recent collections—Entries, Given, and Leavings—to create an expanded collection, showcasing the work of a man heralded by The Baltimore Sun as “a sophisticated, philosophical poet in the line descending from Emerson and Thoreau . . . a major poet of our time.”

 

via www.powells.com

Wendell Berry poem featured in The Writer's Almanac

In Art Rowanberry’s Barn

by Wendell Berry

In Art Rowanberry's barn, when Art's death
had become quietly a fact among
the other facts, Andy Catlett found
a jacket made of the top half
of a pair of coveralls after
the legs wore out, for Art
never wasted anything.

...

via writersalmanac.publicradio.org

Wendell Berry noted in "The New World of William Carlos Williams"

Why is it, then, that almost fifty years after his death, the reputation of William Carlos Williams still seems to be haunted by a ghost of uncertainty? You don’t have to read far in “Something Urgent I Have to Say to You,” Herbert Leibowitz’s assiduous new commentary on Williams’s “life and works,” before you hear its moans. “During his lifetime Williams had the pleasure of becoming a beloved figure,” writes Leibowitz, the founder and longtime editor of the journal Parnassus. But

voices of dissent rang out from the choir loft, basically rehearsing the accusations that he lacked the rudiments of technique or an understanding of form, that he was a sentimentalist and a shallow thinker, and, most damaging of all, that his quest for a uniquely American poem grounded in speech was a foolish enterprise, doomed to fail.

In the poet Wendell Berry’s The Poetry of William Carlos Williams of Rutherford, a brief personal tribute to a writer Berry counts as a major influence, the same undermining voices are invoked: “I would hear, sometimes from older writers I admired, judgments such as ‘I love Bill Williams, but he has no mind,’” Berry writes. “Late into the drafting of this book I still felt the need to begin by defending him,” before realizing that “defense was not necessary.”

via www.nybooks.com

from "Google Privacy and a Wendell Berry Poem"

So, what to do? Wendell Berry knew, way before Google existed:

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute.  Love the Lord.  Love the world.  Work for nothing.  Take all you have and be poor.  Love someone who does not deserve it.  Denounce the government and embrace the flag.  Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.

And he has some advice for us about how to know what is right in a world with so many questions:

Expect the end of the world.  Laugh.  Laughter is immeasurable.  Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.  So long as women do not go cheap for power, please women more than men.  Ask youself:  Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child?  Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?

via www.nodepression.com

Wendell Berry poem covered on bluegrass album

Perhaps the most ambitious song is The Peace Of Wild Things/Dayblind, where they take Wendell Berry's moving poem ('When despair for the world grows in me') and present a mournful talking version, which then develops into a life-affirming bluegrass instrumental.

via www.telegraph.co.uk