Blog Watch: Reflections on WB's "Remembering"

Book Review: Remembering « Itinerant Idealist.

I have taken Wendell Berry for my mentor. His books challenge me, especially his fiction, because they make me face what is real, hungry, and true in my own heart. This is not escapist literature- there is no whisking away involved in reading Hannah Coulter, or A Place on Earth. You don’t put down his novels like you do some modern books and wish your life weren’t so mundane. In Berry’s characters, you meet yourself. The loves, the quiet losses, the unspoken griefs, the desires for transcendence and hope that plague every one of us humans every day, get articulated in the thoughts and lives of his characters. Because of this, Mr. Berry also manages to put his finger on the pulse of what we have lost in modern culture. READ MORE ...

Blog Watch: WB cited on reading outdoors

Try Reading the Bible Outdoors–You’ll Like It « the kingdom tree.

There is just something awe-inspiring about hearing the words of God’s Story echoing through God’s majestic creation; it brings a whole new level of understanding and appreciation for the great story we are all a part of–humans, animals, trees and grass. One of my favorite authors, Wendell Berry, captures this eloquently:

I don’t think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is a “hypaethral book,” such as Thoreau talked about–a book open to the sky. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. READ MORE ...

More on petition against coal-burning plant

KFTC members call on PSC to stop unneccesary coal-burning power plant — Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.

KFTC members took action today to stop a proposed coal-burning power plant in Central Kentucky along the Kentucky River. KFTC, along with our friends at the Sierra Club and Kentucky Environmental Foundation, filed a formal petition asking the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) to revoke East Kentucky Power Cooperative's approval for a proposed "Smith" coal-burning plant in Clark County.

Our petition to the PSC contends that the proposed Smith plant is an unnecessary and unreasonable risk to ratepayers and asked that the EKPC's "Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity" be revoked. We are encouraging EKPC to shift to cleaner, more affordable energy solutions. READ MORE ...

And still more at ...

E. Ky. power plant challenged at PSC

Local group joins protest of coal-burning power plant

WB and others resist KY coal plant

WZTV FOX 17/Nashville.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- A group of environmental organizations and three citizens are asking the state Public Service Commission to halt plans for a coal-fired power plant in eastern Kentucky. READ MORE ...

Blog Watch: WB among the Luddites

Long Live the Luddites | Front Porch Republic.

What Berry contributed in the 1970s to the discussion of technological immersion was nothing less than that resilient business of limits—limits on desire, scale, and kind, all of which add up to the moral limits hardly anyone wants to talk about.

Plenty of technological gluttons regard themselves, and want to be regarded, as careful consumers of technology. They are nothing of the sort. They are large-mouth bass with treble hooks deep in their throats. The principal feature of our economic lives–that we use the world up when we make things and poison it when we throw them away–is no concern of theirs. READ MORE ...

Just discovered: thoughts on "Hannah Coulter"

Read All Day.

I have read poetry by Wendell Berry but I have never read any of his fiction. Judging from Hannah Coulter, published in 2004, his prose is like his poetry: lyrical, peaceful, elegiac to farm and country, and spiritually radiant. But quietly so. Berry above all is quiet. Firm and persuasive, but quiet. Like his main characters, who live off the land and for the land and who accept that they are of the land and when dead, will return to the land. READ MORE ...

The joy of tweeting

On 'Hannah Coulter' and stories

The Stories We Tell… | Front Porch Republic.

If you have read just one of Wendell Berry’s novels or short stories, then you have glimpsed this Kentucky farmer’s love for family, place, and story. In a contemplative section of his 2004 novel, Hannah Coulter, Berry entwines these three enduring parts of the human experience. With your indulgence, I’d like to read about a page from Hannah’s thoughts and eavesdrop on her reflections of how education forms (or too often misforms) the souls of young people. READ MORE ...

WB as maker of 'artful sentences'

paws and reflect...: sentences....

Sample Excerpts:
Noun Phrases

Below, a sentence with parallelism best suited to a speech is composed of six kernel clauses, each with a noun phrase in the direct object slot.

 In five of the clauses, the parallelism and the repetition of the key concept they conserve emphasize the treasures being conserved in those direct objects:

These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery.
Wendell Berry, Citizenship Papers, 170

READ MORE ...

Blog Watch: WB cited on return to farming

Greetings from the Farm « Ukiah Blog Live.

I was born and raised on a Great Depression/WWII Iowa farm and would likely be there still, if I could have found a way to afford to stay. When I graduated from high school, the industrialization of agriculture was well on the way, beginning with heavy mechanized equipment expenses. I always wanted to return, as Wendell Berry did, but could never find the means. I sometimes tell Marlene of my continued wishes for a real farm, to which she laughs and asks me how I would have the energy to operate it. OK, I’m almost 74 years old and, since I insist in “farming” without power tools, I have about enough to keep me busy. This is especially true since time is wasted reading and writing and walking and just poking around. READ MORE ...