A longtime spokesman for conservation, common sense, and sustainable agriculture, Wendell Berry writes eloquently in several styles and methods. Among other literary forms, he is a poet of great clarity and sureness. His love of language and his care for its music are matched only by his fidelity to the subjects he has written of during his first twenty-five years of land and nature, the family and community, tradition as the groundwork for life and culture. His graceful elegies sit easily alongside lyrics of humor and biting satire. Husbandman and husband, philosopher and Mad Farmer, he writes of values that endure, of earthy truths and universal imagery. His vision is one of hope and memory, of determination and faithfulness. For this far-reaching yet portable volume, Berry has chosen nearly two hundred poems from his previous eight collections.
Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."
I'm no poetry buff, but this collection includes the only poem that's ever ripped my beating heart from my chest and made me want to run naked through the streets yelling "Enough of this hurried nonsense, go plant a tree for #%*'s sake!" (Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front)
While Berry is not quite my style of poet, I do enjoy his poems. Lovely springtime reading.
"The Peace of Wild Things" (69) When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
from "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" (151-152) ...Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
Do not think me gentle because I speak in praise of gentleness, or elegant because I honor the grace that keeps this world. I am a man crude as any, gross of speech, intolerant, stubborn, angry, full of fits and furies. That I may have spoken well at times, is not natural. A wonder is what it is.
A really beautiful anthology that lets you grow into the style of verse as Wendell seems to grow into himself. Thoughts on soil, death, reincarnation, cycles, contentment, disaster, and the peace and holiness of nature.
Favorites: The Bird Killer The Plan The Design of a House The Cold The Peace of Wild Things A Discipline Enriching the Earth On the Hill Late at Night Song in a Year of Catastrophe Satisfactions of the Mad Farmer Manifesto: the Mad Farmer Liberation Front Praise A Homecoming Goods To the Holy Spirit We Who Prayed and Wept The Gift of Gravity
“What I know of spirit is astir In the world. The god I have always expected To appear at the woods edge, beckoning, I have always expected to be A great relisher of this world, its good Grown immortal in his mind”
Travel by your spirit into the future where there are no torture chamber farms filling the landscape anymore. Hallelujah. Notwithstanding my strong ethical reservations about some of the subject matter and the lessons drawn therefrom, I would still consider this a collection worth reading. I just disagree with the poet's entire stand on existence and animal existentialism. But nice words.
Flawless, moving poetry. Endlessly thought-provoking, yet immediately accessible. Go to a bookstore, pick this book up, and just flip through until one catches your eye. Read it twice. Here's one of my favorites:
Awake at Night
Late in the night I pay the unrest I owe to the life that has never lived and cannot live now. What the world could be is my good dream and my agony when, dreaming it, I lie awake and turn and look into the dark. I think of a luxury in the sturdiness and grace of necessary things, not in frivolity. That would heal the earth, and heal men. But the end, too, is part of the pattern, the last labor of the heart: to learn to lie still, one with the earth again, and let the world go.
Immaculate poetry from an earthy pen, if ever there were the culmination of the "high art" of words and the "low art" of farming, it is to be found here in the writing of Wendell Berry. Whereas Berry's poems is only the latest of his works that I have completed in the preceding months (following Jayber Crow and Imagination in Place, it is one of the first I picked up, catching a lonely used copy at the University of Chicago's library booksale one day last spring.
My encounter with Berry starts off with a critical weakness: of all the literary forms of art, poetry is the one I understand the least. I recall how during MAPH a typical literary course would begin with a set of readings in poetry (say, Yeats for Irish Modernism, Baudelaire for Aestheticism & Decadence, or Wordsworth for Wretchedness), and how feeble I felt approaching these texts. Poetry has this unique power to unman us, especially those of us who tend (as I do) toward analysis, critical engagement, etc. I quickly learned to treat poetry with a foreign type of skepticism, unsure of how I ought to engage, unsure of how I ought to read. For Christians, this often occurs when theologians and pastors encounter the Psalms or the poetic portions of the Prophets - they simply resist our rationalistic platitudes.
But Berry eases you in, even if you are a foreigner to the world of poetry. This collection, well selected and edited, even eases you into Berry's poetic style, as his voice matures from 1957 to 1982. The early poems are often lackluster or overly-sentimental, but they still usher the reader into the world of Berry's Kentucky farms and rivers. There is a sedate holiness to it all that beckons like a lover, at first coy and shy, later passionate, later still mature and knowingly. One enters into a romance with the poetry of Wendell Berry.
All the while, Berry is teaching his reader: he is teaching about farms and soils and weather, he is teaching about Creation, Fall, and Redemption, and he is teaching, perhaps most metapedagogically, of poetry, of the power of words, and of the purpose for a robust aesthetics. There is no room for those half-hearted expressionist poems that have clogged our ears for nearly a century, here Berry grounds us in the earth and in the world and fills our bellies with good, rich, nutritious food. One feasts at his table as a farmer does for "breakfast," before the day's work begins.
To pinpoint any one exemplary poem would be a mistake; they all flow into one another (especially in the latter three subdivisions) with remarkable ease and beauty. The famous "Mad Farmer" poems are particularly poignant, suggesting both revolution and tradition in the same voice (thus, perhaps, the titular "madness"). Any and every reflection on marriage in general or Berry's marriage to Tanya in particular are diamond gems of poetry, far greater than any of the nonsense written on the subject by a wide variety of folks over the past centuries. Moreover, Berry's work, taken in whole, speaks to a world-that-is-not which dwells alongside the world-that-is, and it is sometimes difficult to discern which is which. Is this world we live in, full as it is of skyscrapers and strip mining, the real one? Or do we live in a fantasy after all (and a bad one at that)?
This is also profoundly Christian work, of the caliber that no writer whose work gets sold at "Christian Family Stores" has ever touched, and it is more the pity, since I doubt Berry himself would be sold in such stores. (He is in good company, as several profoundly poetic Christian rappers are also not sold in those stores, and they represent some of the best poetry in the American Christian world...) The whole thing hums with the Holy Spirit and makes for a good companion (as I have suggested elsewhere) to theologian Walter Brueggemann's landmark The Prophetic Imagination.
Other than being a masterpiece, I will add that this collection of Berry's poems has encouraged and inspired me to begin reading more poetry, a genre that, as I mentioned earlier, I had left very much alone until now. Now, I look forward to diving into the mess and beauty of these glorious words.
Wendell Berry writes with a weight. Sometimes it is so great I feel the page struggle to keep the ink from falling through into the ground, other times in the same poem, and even line, I watch the page struggle to prevent the letters from taking flight around the room. His perspective zooms me in to see the cleaving of dirt by the roots of the trees and spring flowers, and then I am rushed out to view the fractal dance of all life, the dead and living flowing in circles of desire, departure, return and rest. Work is given its proper value, and hued with shades of urgent cantankerousness, and joyous duty. Rest is found in the strangest places, which when considered, give peace to brooding theologies. I am thankful for Berry’s earnest curiosity, and disciplined devotion to participation in life. He does it well. It is a gift that he records it so deftly. I am sure he knows and doesn’t know he is my friend.
This collection of poems by Wendell Berry spans twenty-five years. When viewed from the far future (even the last of these poems were written and published before I was born), these poems form a remarkable whole. With every new collection, Berry expands his thoughts, deeply rooted in nature, in the cultivating of the land and the understanding that we are a part of a greater whole.
It becomes a hopeful read, where thoughts on work and death are not dark thoughts - Berry never lets us forget that even death is a part of what we are, and a part of the land, ever-present in the farmer’s life with the growing of crops and everything settling for the winters. A must-read if you want poetry on nature and our relation to it.
I feel like I should love Berry's work, but I just cannot connect with it. Read the poems that a previous reader highlighted, and a few more, and failed. Sorry. November 2021
While the summer's growth kept me anxious in planted rows, I forgot the river where it flowed, faithful to its way, beneath the slope where my household has taken its laborious stand. I could not reach it even in dreams. But one morning at the summer's end I remember it again, as though its being lifts into mind in undeniable flood, and I carry my boat down through the fog, over the rocks, and set out.
These poems were like a balm to the soul. Berry continually attempts to focus us back on the essentials. The main question he tries to answer is, what does it mean to truly inhabit a place? Our world thinks we can be fully human while being disembodied and displaced. This could not be further from the truth. If we desire to live as we ought, we must be connected to the land and our neighbors. Our utilitarian age has led us astray. We have destroyed what was sacred for what was expedient and by doing so, lost our souls. This collection was well worth the time. I look forward to reading more of Berry's contemporary poetry collections.
This book of collected poems is a go medicine for those who have been infected by the breakdown of community and the mobility of people in postmodern times. Berry writes magically of place in such a way that you want to put down roots. He also exposes the interrelated nature of relationships with God and one another. His famous Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front is worth the price of the book but there is more so much more that will move you. The sense of life's mystery is explored in the collection in a way that only poetry can.
Before even reading it, I gave it a premonitory five stars. I was so right. I just love Wendell Berry. He makes me feel good, and he's got just the right balance of anger and peace and beauty. What an inspiration.
Although I have not read quite all of the poems in this collection, I read most of them. I am fairly certain that in my younger years I would not have appreciated the poetry or the themes, but at this point I found both wonderful and full of wonder.
My favourites: Do Not Be Ashamed* Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front* At A Country Funeral To A Siberian Woodsman To the Holy Spirit We Who Prayed and Wept
This was my first experience with anything by Wendell Berry, and I wish I had started with a novel rather than his poetry. I also wonder if reading a single collection rather than a compilation of multiple volumes might have worked better. I say this because I found myself struggling with poems from The Broken Ground and then feeling at ease with ones from Openings. My favorite selections came from A Part (1980). Overall, many of the poems were much more agrarian than I expected, Berry being not only a writer but also a farmer in Kentucky. Because of this I was reminded of a course I took in my undergraduate years called, “American Literary Regionalism.” We studied literature from different regions of America and how style, setting, and feel often had a common thread. I don’t remember what we read from Kentucky, if anything, but I certainly could feel Berry’s love for his home, land, farm, and region through his writing.
Even in the moments I couldn’t connect, I still loved so many of the poems. I’m happy this book will sit in my personal collection of poetry, and I am sure I will revisit.
BOOK REVIEW ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Berry’s poetry can rip your heart out with its simplicity. More or less a poem a day for April (Poetry Month). I didn’t read them all, clearly.
How exactly good it is to know myself in the solitude of winter,
my body containing its own warmth, divided from all by the cold; and to go
separate and sure among the trees cleanly divided, thinking of you
perfect too in your solitude, your life withdrawn into your own keeping
to be clear, poised in perfect self-suspension toward you, as though frozen.
And having known fully the goodness of that, it will be good also to melt.
This book was an emotional Rollercoaster for me. I loved it at times, at other times hated it. I feel like I walk away knowing Wendell the man a bit better, and I am not certain I would want to share a coffee or a beer with the guy.
The first third of the book I could not put down. Then I hit the poems about marriage. What a creepy slog that was!
My biggest critique is what does this beautiful environmental poetry have to offer those who are not landowning, married, men?
What surprised me most is Wendell Berry's uncanny ability to write horror. Wow, there are a handful of poems and lines that stand out to me as some of the finest horror poetry that I have ever read.
I will be keeping this book in my library and will be happy to read parts of it again over the years. I wonder how I will like his more recent work. Right now, I prefer the younger Berrry over the older one.
I hardly ever read a collection of poems because it doesn't have that natural flow that most story books have, but this collection of poems took me into a different world per say. Wendell Berry has a very interesting choice of diction because he is very elegant with his writing. Berry is also very sophisticated which makes his poems interesting to read as they are being written in a different perspective than most read from. His poems include responsibilities from several different roles in life. For example, one of my favorite poems out of this book was the one titled, "The Grandmother." This poem gave emphasis on how a grandmother goes through thick and thin for her children and especially for her grandkids. If you enjoy reading from a different and more sophisticated perspective, I would definitely recommend this book by Wendell Berry.
"In the household of the woods The past is always healing in the light"
Love binds us to this term, With its 'yes' that Is crying in our marrow To confirm life that Only lives by dying" -An Anniversary
"What she made in her body is broken Now she has begun to bear it again In the house of her son's death his life shining in the windows, for she elected to bear him again." - Poem For J.
"...warbler, swallow, oriole stroke their deft flight through the river's serene reflection of the sky, as though, corrupted, it shows the incorrupt. Is this memory or promise?"
Nice, but not as wowing as some of his other pieces. Maybe just not quite my style? Or perhaps he has grown as a writer and I prefer his newer work. Not giving it stars bc I can't give him a low rating lol.
How I rate books: 5 Stars= I absolutely loved it, felt very moved. Extraordinary. I rarely give this rating. 4 Stars= Well done 3 Stars= I enjoyed it but wasn't wowed. My most common rating 2 Stars=Meh 1 Stars= The kind of book that I feel shouldn't have been published bc it might discourage some from becoming readers.
Wendell Berry is a fast favorite ♡ I especially loved -marriage -sleep -to know the dark -winter nightfall -earth and fire ☆ -the country of marriage -a homecoming -the mad farmers love song -forty years -a meeting ☆ -a warning to my readers -except
Combines several collections chronologically, fitting to see the constancies - place, death, seasons, working the land - and tease out the shifting tones of anger, protest, acceptance, and close attention in the raindrops: "We have all / been here before."
As with most poetry collections (and poets), really enjoyed some while not fully enjoying others, but overall thoroughly enjoyed this collection. "The Peace of Wild Things", "Three Elegiac Poems", and "A Purification" stood out.
The Collected Poems feels like stepping into the quiet sanctity of a world that still listens, to land, to loss, to love. Each poem is rooted and reverent, yet piercingly wise, offering a language for stillness in a world addicted to speed. It's not just poetry; it’s a way of being.