Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky

Site Note: Getting Started with Wendell Berry

*Getting Started

If you are new to Wendell Berry's work, you might start or continue your reading with one of these. The list is based solely on my own preferences. (Br. Tom)

via brtom.typepad.com

This is a new page here at the site ... thanks especially to Isabel for the nudge.

If you are new to Wendell Berry's work, you might start or continue your reading with one of these. The list is based solely on my own preferences. (Br. Tom)

Places

You might have noticed that I've added a new gadget down near the bottom of this site ... the FEEDJIT Live thingamajig. I'm having some silly fun watching you as you arrive. I tend to stay put, but I daydream a bit about other places—the places where you are. I like to think that your place is a real place, a place that you can know and love as surely as I can know and love mine.

So here is a little list of where some of you recently come from ... Welcome, All!

Surrey, British Columbia
Louisville, Kentucky
Lexington, North Carolina
Raeford, North Carolina
League City, Texas
Lawton, Oklahoma
Sharon, Massachusetts
Franklin, North Carolina
Newport, Kentucky
Bronx, New York
Beijing
Ridgeland, Mississippi
Crystal Springs, Mississippi
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Northfield, Minnesota
Oakland, California
Urbana, Illinois
San Antonio, Texas
Crystal Springs, Mississippi
Seattle, Washington
Sydenham, Victoria
Vancouver, British Columbia
Nanjing, Jiangsu
Wichita, Kansas
Seoul, Seoul-t'ukpyolsi
Trowbridge, Wiltshire
Chatham, New Jersey
Haddonfield, New Jersey
Woodstock, New York
Richmond, Kentucky
Bombay, Maharashtra
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Greensboro, North Carolina

Imagination in Place

Mr. Berry's recently published essay collection, Imagination in Place, is now in place on this site; i.e. listed on the Works (Alphabetical, Chronological, and Generic) pages.

WB rebroadcast bump

WAMU 88.5 FM American University Radio - The Diane Rehm Show.

A rebroadcast today of Mr. Berry's late November interview with Diane Rehm produced a good-sized pile of hits to this site that pulled us out of the post-Christmas dumps very nicely. WELCOME to all who may have visited here for the first time!

Today's action at MWBoK

The activity aimed at this site today has been unprecedented. And so we take note.

Normally, Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky averages about 200 page views per day. But we just finished our day (based on GMT) at 702. Here's our traffic graphic for the past 120 days:

 

Quite unusual. The only difference between today and other days seems to be that Mr. Berry was interviewed on NPR. This seems to have driven hordes of folk to Google "Wendell Berry" which led them on to this site—many, perhaps, for the first time.That's all I can figure.

So if you are one of those newcomers, welcome! I hope that this site may continue for some time to be a good resource for those who are seeking the challenge and hopefulness that Mr. Berry offers.

Blog Watch: WB to be discussed at ND

Among the many events related to a conference at Notre Dame in the coming week will be a panel devoted to Mr. Berry.

Notre Dame conference : Theopolitical.

Wendell Berry: A Man for All Seasons
* Civic Lessons from Port William, Kentucky: Wendell Berry’s Imaginative World of ‘Membership’ (Michael Stevens, Cornerstone University)
* The Place of Knowing: Wendell Berry and the Epistemology of Agrarianism (Mark Mitchell, Patrick Henry College)
* Healing the Hidden Wound: The Theology of the Body in Wendell Berry’s Remembering (Nathan Schlueter, Hillsdale College)
* Gratitude as a Virtue in Wendell Berry (Matt Bonzo, Cornerstone University) 
READ MORE ...

More information HERE

The WB Facebook thing

Barring a temporary shutdown to reorganize itself, it appears that the previously mentioned Wendell Berry page on Facebook has been deleted. I'm sincerely sorry to see this, since it cuts off more than 3,000 people from quick access to information from here, Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky. Needless to say, MWBoK is staying put, and I hope some of the old FB folks will find a way ("Subscribe to This Blog's Feed" anyone? ) to stay in touch.

I recommend that members of that apparently-defunct WB page sign on to The Wendell Berry Society (1601 members at present), which has always been admirably transparent in its creation and intentions.
 
Name: The Wendell Berry Society
Category: Organizations - Non-Profit Organizations
Description: For those who enjoy the work of the farmer-poet, Wendell Berry, and/or agree that we are steadily losing a part of what makes us human in our rush to embrace technology and uber-industrialism. For those that retain agrarian values in the face of mass development and rampant consumerism.
Privacy Type: Open: All content is public.

Just posted to the WB Facebook page

I just posted the following to the Wendell Berry Facebook page because after searching "Wendell Berry Facebook" I discovered that the page description contains some serious inaccuracies.

Dear moderator of this FB page, I write with a simple request that, if at all possible, you change the public search description of this FB page so that it does NOT read "Welcome to the official Facebook Page of Wendell Berry. Get exclusive content and interact with Wendell Berry right from Facebook." This is very misleading. Based on some fan comments left here, it seems that people sometimes come here expecting to have some "interaction" with Mr. Berry ... and that's just not the case. Thanks again for setting up this page which brings my efforts at "Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky" to a much wider group.

Oh ... one other issue is this "exclusive content." Unless I'm missing something, there's nothing exclusive about what appears here (aside from fan comments). It all comes from MWBoK, which is also not exclusive but just me trolling the web for interesting bits. Thanks.

And now I'm just noticing another point which I failed to make in my post. The page is labeled "official" and I wonder what that could ever mean. I hope this can be quickly resolved ... especially since it involves the work of a man whose personal integrity in matters of life and language is well known.

A Milestone

Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky just hit 55,000 lifetime page views. Thanks for your support.

A place for the critical

This recent Comments exchange seems significant enough for me to post it generally for wider consideration. Several people have commented positively on this site's linking to recent blog posts that are critical of Mr. Berry's thought. I appreciate that, but am also attentive to those who think such negative takes on WB should have no place here. Smith's comment is very helpful to me.

Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky: Blog Watch: A problem with WB.

Is this the third rant from this "terrierman" that has been linked to from this page lately? Who is this blogger-nobody who thinks he can touch the modern-day Emerson that is Mr. Wendell Berry? Stop giving him attention.
Posted by: Smith | 07/31/2009 at 01:52 AM

Hello! A little looking around tells us that "terrierman" is one Patrick Burns, who has written a book called "American Working Terriers."

 One of my (of course self-defined) missions with this site, "Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky," has been to make easily accessible whatever WB-related material may appear on the web. And I get to make the call on what is substantial, relevant, and interesting among the various things that pop up. But I don't assume that readers here will always agree with my editorial choices.

My experience with WB material on the web has shown that the vastest amount of it is respectful of the man and his work; some of it is worshipful; much is redundant. But only a very small portion is critical to the degree that Mr. Burns' posts have been.

If Mr. Burns were being blatantly obscene or ignorant in his posting, I'd have no problem with ignoring him. But he is clearly trying to construct a rational explanation of some flaws he sees in Mr. Berry's thought (as he understands it). If we find flaws in Mr. Burns' thought, we should probably point them out ... as Brad East has done so well at http://tinyurl.com/kke87w ... point them out or ignore them as we choose.

Thanks very much for raising this issue. Maybe it's time for me to be more explicit about my intentions and editorial policies behind this site. As all-consumed as it is with "Everything WB" ... and maybe because of this ... it is not a cultic shrine. I don't believe Mr. Berry would want it to be.
Posted by: brtom | 07/31/2009 at 08:33 AM