WB to be present at farm dedication

60-Acre Farm To Be Preserved In Hixson - Breaking News - Chattanoogan.com.

One of the largest remaining family farms in Hamilton County, within the city limits of Chattanooga, will be protected from development and remain a landmark.

The children of Inez Hartman and Samuel Perry McConnell entered a lease agreement with the non-profit St. Andrews Center of Highland Park to provide stewardship and cultural/agricultural programming.

A private dedication ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. Friday featuring remarks by poet and farmer Wendell Berry of Kentucky and a dedication poem read by local writer Laurie Perry Vaughen. READ MORE ...

"Wild Blessings" illumined

Wild Blessings - An Overview: 2009 Humana Festival of New American Plays.

Wild Blessings is true to its title as being a celebration or tribute to Berry. The play is not a biography unless poetry itself can be considered a kind of autobiographical road map. In Berry’s words taken from the play Wild Blessings contains “the stories of lives, knit together throughout history.” As a play with music, the instrumentation of Wild Blessings is simple and clean, supporting the power of Berry’s poetry. The play itself captures both the drama and humor of Berry’s poetry and illuminates his metaphor. READ MORE ...

WB selects Merton Poetry Prize

The Merton Institute for Contemplative Living.

The 2009 Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred

Dementia
by Gayle Reed Carroll of Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania

Deep in trees, birds sang with so much heart
they seemed to dance on the risky twigs
Leaves shuddered, moved by a man's restive excitement.
Or was it he, moved by the passion of leaves?
His house had lodged itself among the branches.
But that was his time of longing.

READ MORE ...

WB event: June 12, Louisville

Super Early Warning: Wendell Berry at Farmington's Evening in the Garden - Consuming Louisville.

Farmington will be hosting it's annual Evening in the Garden fundraiser on Friday, June 12, 2009. This year's honoree for the evening is author and Kentucky native, Wendell Berry. The event will include a live and silent auction, and dinner catered by Wiltshire Pantry to feature a Kentucky seasonal menu. Our newly redesigned garden, to be completed next month, will also be a focal point. The event begins at 6:30 and tickets are $150. READ MORE ...

NPR profiles 'Wild Blessings'

Theater - 'Wild Blessings': Wendell Berry's Passions, Reframed : NPR.

Wild Blessings weaves Berry's poems together with original music by composer Malcom Dalglish, who speaks and plays instruments onstage. Four actors, who also play instruments, present Berry's characters and life.

The arc of the play mirrors Berry's own migration: Born in 1934, he moved away from Kentucky in the late '50s to live in California and New York. Ultimately, though, he returned to his home state, where since the '60s he's been living the kind of agrarian life he writes about.

For playgoers, "the journey of the evening is [about] being a young person in the city and struggling against urban life, and then falling in love and moving back to home, which happens to be Kentucky," says Marc Masterson, artistic director at the Actor's Theatre. READ MORE ...

Blog Watch: Reflection on "Wild Blessings"

Blessings in the wild « Tangzine.

Wild Blessings, a new play based on Berry’s poetic works, is billed as a celebration of a faithful steward, a friendly neighbor, a loving husband and a kind of modern day prophet claimed by environmentalists, literature enthusiasts, Christians and conservatives alike. But the 75-minute play is as much a celebration of the things Berry has inspired readers for decades to appreciate, enjoy and protect. READ MORE ...

Q&A with Matt Bonzo

Cardus - Q&A with Matt Bonzo, Professor of Philosophy, Cornerstone University.

Comment: What are the biggest challenges facing recent graduates who hope to do the kind of work you do?

Matt Bonzo: Aside from the challenge of finding a position in an academic institution, I think the biggest challenge is the temptation to overspecialize in order to advance in the profession. When philosophy loses its ability to see the big picture and to help recognize connections, I think it becomes a game unto itself. As Wendell Berry says, "If fragmentation is the problem, fragmentation isn't the solution." I don't think philosophy helps when it isolates one from lived existence. READ MORE ...

"Wild Blessings" in Louisville

"Wild Blessings: A Celebration of Wendell Berry" - Actors Theatre of Louisville - Louisville, KY Events | Metromix Louisville.

World premiere brings the works of nationally acclaimed poet, novelist, and ecological visionary Wendell Berry to the stage in a celebration of words, music, and a life well-lived. Part of the Humana Festival of American Plays. READ MORE (schedule and prices) ...

RFK Jr. on mountaintop mining

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Stopping Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining - washingtonpost.com.

Yesterday was a great day for the people of Appalachia and for all of America. In a bold departure from Bush-era energy policy, the Obama administration suspended a coal company's permit to dump debris from its proposed mountaintop mining operation into a West Virginia valley and stream. In addition, the administration promised to carefully review upward of 200 such permits awaiting approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. READ MORE ...

WB will be in Chattanooga

Wendell Berry: The Farmer Resists.

“The truth is that we Americans, all of us, have become a kind of human trash, living our lives in the midst a ubiquitous damned mess of which we are at once the victims and the perpetrators.” — Wendell Berry, “Waste”

Wendell Berry will be among the literary heavyweights attending this year’s Conference on Southern Literature (CSL). The affable 74-year-old farmer from Kentucky is a man who defies category. Berry is a white, Southern, Protestant farmer, an agrarian, an activist conservationist, and an acclaimed writer who has challenged our most basic notions of economic and cultural progress. READ MORE ...

Mr. Berry will be receiving the Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement on Friday, April 3.