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The Collected Poems, 1957-1982

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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.

268 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1985

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About the author

Wendell Berry

284 books4,735 followers
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."

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5 stars
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
Profile Image for Merek.
18 reviews1 follower
April 3, 2019
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)
Profile Image for Melody Schwarting.
2,089 reviews83 followers
June 9, 2023
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.
Profile Image for Simon Robs.
498 reviews102 followers
October 4, 2019
A Warning to My Readers

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.
Profile Image for Jack Nordick.
16 reviews
July 19, 2024
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”
Profile Image for W.B..
Author 4 books127 followers
February 15, 2021
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.
Profile Image for Joel.
174 reviews24 followers
February 28, 2008
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.


Profile Image for Alex.
92 reviews2 followers
Read
August 22, 2022
Mmmm dnf. I don’t think I’m sophisticated enough in poetry…
Profile Image for Wayne.
315 reviews18 followers
March 2, 2019
Perfect poems for the country. Nice to watch a poet's writing develop and themes evolve over half a lifetime. Wise words...
Profile Image for Ian Caveny.
111 reviews29 followers
August 18, 2017
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.
Profile Image for Kirby Whitehead.
106 reviews
August 23, 2020
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.
243 reviews3 followers
May 25, 2021
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.
Profile Image for Cheryl.
12.5k reviews478 followers
xx-dnf-skim-reference
November 27, 2021
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
Profile Image for Tim.
21 reviews5 followers
September 7, 2024
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.


- 'The Heron'
Profile Image for Devon.
284 reviews9 followers
January 1, 2025
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.
Profile Image for Jim.
51 reviews
November 18, 2007
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.
891 reviews23 followers
August 26, 2007
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.
Profile Image for Amy Edwards.
306 reviews21 followers
January 3, 2017
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.
Profile Image for Miss Clark.
2,867 reviews221 followers
March 2, 2025
3.5 stars for the listed poems in particular

2.5 as a whole

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
Profile Image for Cassie.
289 reviews6 followers
November 26, 2023
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.

Now to add Jayber Crow to my list for next year.
Profile Image for John Sinclair.
391 reviews2 followers
April 23, 2021
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.

Wendell Berry, The Cold, 1968

#bibliophile #book #bookish #booklover #books #books2021 #booksofinstagram #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #bookworm #goodreads #instabook #instabooks #reader #readers #reading #readingroom #readersofinstagram #bookreview #poetrymonth
Profile Image for cyranoiones.
9 reviews
April 16, 2023
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.
11 reviews
May 1, 2023
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.
Profile Image for Emily Hill.
112 reviews11 followers
August 7, 2024
Officially found a favorite poet 🌱

"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?"
Profile Image for Claire Nolan.
200 reviews8 followers
Read
December 27, 2022
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.
Profile Image for Bethany ♡.
23 reviews2 followers
April 1, 2023
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
Profile Image for Luke.
1,069 reviews20 followers
September 18, 2023
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."
135 reviews
November 27, 2023
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.
Profile Image for Momina Areej.
97 reviews3 followers
May 27, 2025
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.







Profile Image for JeanAnn.
99 reviews
July 16, 2017
An early classic Wendell Berry poetry book. Whether one is reading poetry, prose, cultural commentary, or novels by Wendell Berry, all rings true.
Profile Image for RJ Boyle.
140 reviews35 followers
January 10, 2018
honestly, i gave up 40 pages before the end. i was really aggravated with some of the styling.
srry wendell berry, u still cool tho.
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