Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky

Wendell Berry's new story collection reviewed

When Berry (Hannah Coulter, 2004, etc.) hasn’t been writing poetry or essays on farming life, he’s written fiction set in Port William, Ky., which rivals William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County in terms of its breadth of imagined historical detail. These 20 new stories feature familiar characters from earlier novels and stories, but the reader needn’t have read those to get pleasure out of these. That said, the pleasures of this book are modest: Many of these stories are slight fables, flickering with only the slightest plot then softly ending, consistently well-drawn but not always memorable.

via Kirkus Reviews

 

Wendell Berry's Jefferson Lecture is Published

Of course, Mr. Berry's Jefferson Lecture is available online as both text and video. Please visit or re-visit them at will.

But now Counterpoint has published the talk along with an interview by Jim Leach (also available online) and five other essays. And it all fell into my hands yesterday afternoon.

It is good to have the lecture between hard (paper) covers for easy reference, and the same is true of the insightful interview. I've yet to dive into the extra essays, but am looking forward to "Starting From Loss," "The Future of Agriculture," "A Man of Courage Constant to the End," "About Civil Disobedience," and "Maury Telleen, 1928-2011."

Whispers & Hints: New Wendell Berry story collection on the horizon

This, posted by Orion Magazine at Facebook, is the first solid news of an upcoming story collection by Mr. Berry. You, dear reader, might imagine what this does to my literary (and literal) heart. And to yours?

Update: Note the welcome comment below which identifies the title as A Place in Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership.

Wendell Berry story to appear in Orion

Orion Magazine has indicated that they will be publishing a fresh story by Mr. Berry in their May/June issue. This would be a great time to consider a subscription to the box of wonder that is Orion.

(Disclaimer: I am not employed by Orion Magazine ... am just a very happy reader of said periodical :-)

Utne repeats Progressive's letter from Wendell Berry on Work

Though I would support the idea of a 30-hour workweek in some circumstances, I see nothing absolute or indisputable about it. It can be proposed as a universal need only after abandonment of any respect for vocation and the replacement of discourse by slogans.

It is true that the industrialization of virtually all forms of production and service has filled the world with “jobs” that are meaningless, demeaning, and boring—as well as inherently destructive. I don’t think there is a good argument for the existence of such work, and I wish for its elimination, but even its reduction calls for economic changes not yet defined, let alone advocated, by the “left” or the “right.” Neither side, so far as I know, has produced a reliable distinction between good work and bad work. To shorten the “official workweek” while consenting to the continuation of bad work is not much of a solution.

The old and honorable idea of “vocation” is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted. Implicit in this idea is the evidently startling possibility that we might work willingly, and that there is no necessary contradiction between work and happiness or satisfaction.

via www.utne.com

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 on Civil Disobedience (The Progressive)

I have always been suspicious of people who seem to devote their entire lives to forms of protest. We all ought to have better things to do. Ken Kesey once said that the reason not to resist evil is that such resistance is dependent on evil; it makes you dependent on evil. He was right. And Edward Abbey said that saving the world is a good hobby—though he worked hard to save at least parts of it. As for me, the older I get, the less happy I am to leave home. All the places I go seem to be getting farther away. Frankfort, Kentucky, now appears as far off as the planet Saturn, and I wish it more remote.

via www.progressive.org

A new study of Wendell Berry's work

"The Achievement of Wendell Berry: The Hard History of Love" a new book about Wendell Berry's work by Fritz Oehlschlaeger of Virginia Tech is now available at Powell's Books, Amazon, and perhaps your local independent bookstore.

"The Achievement of Wendell Berry: The Hard History of Love is a nearly comprehensive engagement with the work of Wendell Berry, who is without question one of America's most important contemporary writers. This book will remain a significant contribution to scholarship on Berry for some time to come." -- Joel James Shuman, editor of Wendell Berry and Religion and Associate Professor and Chair of Theology at King's College" 

""This is a gentle book about a gentle man. A damning description for those who assume gentleness has no political implications. Oehlschlager, however, shows that the interconnection between Berry's poems, novels, and essays helps us see how gentleness is the decisive challenge to the world created by human hubris. This is an invaluable book to those who know Berry's work well and to those who do not." -- Stanley Hauerwas, author of Hannah's Child: A Theologican's Memoir 

"Adopting Wendell Berry's own practice of exploring ideas through significant works of literature, Oehlschlaeger offers a deeply insightful treatment of Berry's major themes and genres, thus making his own distinctive, nuanced contribution to the agrarian conversation about living in good faith, in our places and with our neighbors."--Ellen F. Davis, author of Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible

 

Wendell Berry writes about Harry Caudill in The Progressive

"And so from the time I read his great testimony, Night Comes to the Cumberlands, in the summer of 1963, Harry Caudill has spoken to me directly and personally. That book bore witness to the abuses inflicted upon his region and its people by the industrial colonialism chiefly of the coal companies." Wendell Berry, "A Man of Courage, Constant to the End." The Progressive, June 2011.

Read an excerpt HERE.

Wendell Berry's letter to The Progressive on Work via Utne Reader

This article is printed here courtesy of The Progressive , where it originally appeared as a letter to the editor in response to the article “Less Work, More Life.”

The Progressive, in the September issue, both in Matthew Rothschild’s “Editor’s Note” and in the article by John de Graaf (“Less Work, More Life”), offers “less work” and a 30-hour workweek as needs that are as indisputable as the need to eat.

Though I would support the idea of a 30-hour workweek in some circumstances, I see nothing absolute or indisputable about it. It can be proposed as a universal need only after abandonment of any respect for vocation and the replacement of discourse by slogans.

It is true that the industrialization of virtually all forms of production and service has filled the world with “jobs” that are meaningless, demeaning, and boring—as well as inherently destructive. I don’t think there is a good argument for the existence of such work, and I wish for its elimination, but even its reduction calls for economic changes not yet defined, let alone advocated, by the “left” or the “right.” Neither side, so far as I know, has produced a reliable distinction between good work and bad work. To shorten the “official workweek” while consenting to the continuation of bad work is not much of a solution.

via www.utne.com