Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry

Berry and solar panels on his farm in Henry County, Kentucky, December 2011
Born (1934-08-05) August 5, 1934
Henry County, Kentucky, U.S.
Occupation Poet, farmer, writer, activist, academic
Nationality American
Education University of Kentucky (B.A; M.A., English, 1957)
Genre Fiction, poetry, essays
Subject agriculture, rural life, community

Wendell E. Berry[1] (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. A prolific author, he has written many novels, short stories, poems, and essays. He is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of The National Humanities Medal, and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He is also a 2013 Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award.[2] On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be ushered into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.[3]

Life

Berry was the first of four children born to John Marshall Berry, a lawyer and tobacco farmer in Henry County, Kentucky, and Virginia Erdman Berry. The families of both of his parents have farmed in Henry County for at least five generations. Berry attended secondary school at Millersburg Military Institute, then earned a B.A. and M.A. in English at the University of Kentucky, where in 1956 he met another Kentucky writer-to-be, Gurney Norman.[4] In 1957, he completed his M.A. and married Tanya Amyx. In 1958, he attended Stanford University's creative writing program as a Wallace Stegner Fellow, studying under Stegner in a seminar that included Edward Abbey, Larry McMurtry, Robert Stone, Ernest Gaines, Tillie Olsen, and Ken Kesey.[5][6] Berry's first novel, Nathan Coulter, was published in April 1960. A Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship took Berry and his family to Italy and France in 1961, where he came to know Wallace Fowlie, critic and translator of French literature. From 1962 to 1964, he taught English at New York University's University College in the Bronx. In 1964, he began teaching creative writing at the University of Kentucky, from which he resigned in 1977.[6] During this time in Lexington, he came to know author Guy Davenport, as well as author and monk Thomas Merton and photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard.[7]

In 1965, Berry, his wife and two children moved to a farm he had purchased, Lane's Landing, and began growing corn and small grains on what eventually became a 125-acre (0.51 km2) homestead. Lane's Landing is in Henry County, Kentucky in north central Kentucky near Port Royal, and his parents' birthplaces, and is on the western bank of the Kentucky River, not far from where it flows into the Ohio River. Berry has farmed, resided, and written at Lane's Landing ever since. He has written about his early experiences on the land and about his decision to return to it in essays such as "The Long-Legged House" and "A Native Hill."[8]

In the 1970s and early 1980s, he edited and wrote for the Rodale Press, including its publications Organic Gardening and Farming and The New Farm. From 1987 to 1993, he returned to the English Department of the University of Kentucky.[6][9] Berry has written at least twenty-five books (or chapbooks) of poems, sixteen volumes of essays, and eleven novels and short story collections. His writing is grounded in the notion that one's work ought to be rooted in and responsive to one's place.

Berry, who describes himself as "a person who takes the Gospel seriously,"[10] has criticized Christian organizations for failing to challenge cultural complacency about environmental degradation,[11] and has shown a willingness to criticize what he perceives as the arrogance of some Christians.[12] He is an advocate of Christian pacifism, as shown in his book Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness (2005).

Berry is a fellow of Britain's Temenos Academy, a learned society devoted to the study of all faiths and spiritual pursuits; Berry publishes frequently in the annual Temenos Academy Review, funded by the Prince of Wales.[13]

Activism

On February 10, 1968, Berry delivered "A Statement Against the War in Vietnam" during the Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft at the University of Kentucky in Lexington:[14]

“ We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to 'win the hearts and minds of the people' by poisoning their crops and burning their villages and confining them in concentration camps; we seek to uphold the 'truth' of our cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations. . . . I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war.[15] ”

On June 3, 1979, Berry engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience against the construction of a nuclear power plant at Marble Hill, Indiana. He describes "this nearly eventless event" and expands upon his reasons for it in the essay "The Reactor and the Garden."[16]

On February 9, 2003, Berry's essay titled "A Citizen's Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States" was published as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. Berry opened the essay—a critique of the G. W. Bush administration's post-9/11 international strategy[17]—by asserting that "The new National Security Strategy published by the White House in September 2002, if carried out, would amount to a radical revision of the political character of our nation."[18]

On January 4, 2009, Berry and Wes Jackson, president of The Land Institute, published an op-ed article in The New York Times titled "A 50-Year Farm Bill."[19] In July 2009 Berry, Jackson and Fred Kirschenmann, of The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, gathered in Washington DC to promote this idea.[20] Berry and Jackson wrote, "We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities."[19]

Also in January 2009 Berry released a statement against the death penalty, which began, "As I am made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life before birth, I am also made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life after birth."[21] And in November 2009, Berry and 38 other writers from Kentucky wrote to Gov. Steve Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway asking them to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in that state.[22]

On March 2, 2009, Berry joined over 2,000 others in non-violently blocking the gates to a coal-fired power plant in Washington, D.C. No one was arrested.[23]

On May 22, 2009, Berry, at a listening session in Louisville, spoke against the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).[24] He said, "If you impose this program on the small farmers, who are already overburdened, you're going to have to send the police for me. I'm 75 years old. I've about completed my responsibilities to my family. I'll lose very little in going to jail in opposition to your program – and I'll have to do it. Because I will be, in every way that I can conceive of, a non-cooperator."[25]

In October 2009 Berry combined with "the Berea-based Kentucky Environmental Foundation (KEF), along with several other non-profit organizations and rural electric co-op members" to petition against and protest the construction of a coal-burning power plant in Clark County, Kentucky.[26] On February 28, 2011, the Kentucky Public Service Commission approved the cancellation of this power plant.[27]

On December 20, 2009, due to the University of Kentucky's close association with coal interests in the state, Berry removed his papers from UK. He explained to the Lexington Herald-Leader, "I don't think the University of Kentucky can be so ostentatiously friendly to the coal industry … and still be a friend to me and the interests for which I have stood for the last 45 years. … If they love the coal industry that much, I have to cancel my friendship."[28] In August, 2012, the papers were donated to The Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort, KY.[29]

On September 28, 2010, Berry participated in a rally in Louisville during an EPA hearing on how to manage coal ash. Berry said, "The EPA knows that coal ash is poison. We ask it only to believe in its own findings on this issue, and do its duty."[30]

Berry, with 14 other protesters, spent the weekend of February 12, 2011 locked in the Kentucky governor's office demanding an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. He was part of the environmental group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth that began their sit-in on Friday and left at midday Monday to join about 1,000 others in a mass outdoor rally.[31][32]

In 2011, The Berry Center was established at New Castle, Kentucky, "for the purpose of bringing focus, knowledge and cohesiveness to the work of changing our ruinous industrial agriculture system into a system and culture that uses nature as the standard, accepts no permanent damage to the ecosphere, and takes into consideration human health in local communities."[33]

Ideas

Berry's nonfiction serves as an extended conversation about the life he values. According to him, the good life includes sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life. The threats Berry finds to this good simple life include: industrial farming and the industrialization of life, ignorance, hubris, greed, violence against others and against the natural world, the eroding topsoil in the United States, global economics, and environmental destruction. As a prominent defender of agrarian values, Berry's appreciation for traditional farming techniques, such as those of the Amish, grew in the 1970s, due in part to exchanges with Draft Horse Journal publisher Maurice Telleen. Berry has long been friendly to and supportive of Wes Jackson, believing that Jackson's agricultural research at The Land Institute lives out the promise of "solving for pattern" and using "nature as model."

Author Rod Dreher writes that Berry's "unshakable devotion to the land, to localism, and to the dignity of traditional life makes him both a great American and, to the disgrace of our age, a prophet without honor in his native land."[34] Similarly, Bill Kauffman argues that "Among the tragedies of contemporary politics is that Wendell Berry, as a man of place, has no place in a national political discussion that is framed by Gannett and Clear Channel."[34] Historian Richard White calls Berry "the environmental writer who has most thoughtfully tried to come to terms with labor" and "one of the few environmental writers who takes work seriously."[35]

The concept of "Solving for pattern", coined by Berry in his essay[36] of the same title, is the process of finding solutions that solve multiple problems, while minimizing the creation of new problems. The essay was originally published in the Rodale Press periodical The New Farm. Though Mr. Berry's use of the phrase was in direct reference to agriculture, it has since come to enjoy broader use throughout the design community.[37][38]

Berry's core ideas, and in particular his poem "Sabbaths III (Santa Clara Valley)," guided the 2007 feature film Unforeseen, produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford.[39] The film's director Laura Dunn stated, "We are of course most grateful to Mr. Berry for sharing his inspired work – his poem served as a guide post for me throughout this, at times meandering, project."[40] Berry appears twice in the film narrating his own poem.[41]

Poetry

Berry's lyric poetry often appears as a contemporary eclogue, pastoral, or elegy; but he also composes dramatic and historical narratives (such as "Bringer of Water"[42] and "July, 1773",[43] respectively) and occasional and discursive poems ("Against the War in Vietnam"[44] and "Some Further Words",[45] respectively).

Berry's first published poetry book consisted of a single poem, the elegiac November Twenty Six Nineteen Hundred Sixty Three (1964), initiated and illustrated by Ben Shahn, commemorating the death of John F. Kennedy. It begins,

We know
The winter earth
Upon the body
Of the young
   President,
   And the early dark
   Falling;

and continues through ten more stanzas (each propelled by the anaphora of "We know"). The elegiac here and elsewhere, according to Triggs, enables Berry to characterize the connections "that link past and future generations through their common working of the land."[46]

The first full-length collection, The Broken Ground (1964), develops many of Berry's fundamental concerns: "the cycle of life and death, responsiveness to place, pastoral subject matter, and recurring images of the Kentucky River and the hill farms of north-central Kentucky" [47]

According to Angyal, "There is little modernist formalism or postmodernist experimentation in [Berry's] verse."[48] A commitment to the reality and primacy of the actual world stands behind these two rejections. In "Notes: Unspecializing Poetry," Berry writes, "Devotion to order that is not poetical prevents the specialization of poetry."[49] He goes on to note, "Nothing exists for its own sake, but for a harmony greater than itself which includes it. A work of art, which accepts this condition, and exists upon its terms, honors the Creation, and so becomes a part of it" [50]

Lionel Basney placed Berry's poetry within a tradition of didactic poetry that stretches back to Horace: "To say that Berry's poetry can be didactic, then, means that it envisions a specific wisdom, and also the traditional sense of art and culture that gives art the task of teaching this wisdom"[51]

For Berry, poetry exists "at the center of a complex reminding"[52] Both the poet and the reader are reminded of the poem's crafted language, of the poem's formal literary antecedents, of "what is remembered or ought to be remembered," and of "the formal integrity of other works, creatures and structures of the world.".[53]

Fiction

Berry's fiction to date consists of eight novels and forty-seven short stories (forty-three of which are collected in That Distant Land, 2004 and A Place in Time, 2012) which, when read as a whole, form a chronicle of the fictional small Kentucky town of Port William. Because of his long-term, ongoing exploration of the life of an imagined place, Berry has been compared to William Faulkner.[54] Yet, although Port William is no stranger to murder, suicide, alcoholism, marital discord, and the full range of losses that touch human lives, it lacks the extremes of characterization and plot development that are found in much of Faulkner. Hence Berry is sometimes described as working in an idealized, pastoral, or nostalgic mode, a characterization of his work which he resists: "If your work includes a criticism of history, which mine certainly does, you can't be accused of wanting to go back to something, because you're saying that what we were wasn't good enough." [55]

The effect of profound shifts in the agricultural practices of the United States, and the disappearance of traditional agrarian life,[56] are some of the major concerns of the Port William fiction, though the theme is often only a background or subtext to the stories themselves. The Port William fiction attempts to portray, on a local scale, what "a human economy … conducted with reverence"[57] looked like in the past—and what civic, domestic, and personal virtues might be evoked by such an economy were it pursued today. Social as well as seasonal changes mark the passage of time. The Port William stories allow Berry to explore the human dimensions of the decline of the family farm and farm community, under the influence of expanding post-World War II agribusiness. But these works rarely fall into simple didacticism, and are never merely tales of decline. Each is grounded in a realistic depiction of character and community. In A Place on Earth (1967), for example, farmer Mat Feltner comes to terms with the loss of his only son, Virgil. In the course of the novel, we see how not only Mat but the entire community wrestles with the acute costs of World War II.

Berry's fiction also allows him to explore the literal and metaphorical implications of marriage as that which binds individuals, families, and communities to each other and to Nature itself—yet not all of Port William is happily or conventionally married. "Old Jack" Beechum struggles with significant incompatibilities with his wife, and with a brief yet fulfilling extramarital affair. The barber Jayber Crow lives with a forlorn, secret, and unrequited love for a woman, believing himself "mentally" married to her even though she knows nothing about it. Burley Coulter never formalizes his bond with Kate Helen Branch, the mother of his son. Yet, each of these men find themselves firmly bound up in the community, the "membership," of Port William.

Of his fictional project, Berry has written: "I have made the imagined town of Port William, its neighborhood and membership, in an attempt to honor the actual place where I have lived. By means of the imagined place, over the last fifty years, I have learned to see my native landscape and neighborhood as a place unique in the world, a work of God, possessed of an inherent sanctity that mocks any human valuation that can be put upon it."[58] Elsewhere, Berry has said, "The only thing I try to accomplish in fiction is to show how people act when they love each other."[59] The novels and stories can be read in any order.

Nathan Coulter (1960)

In Berry's first novel, young Nathan "comes of age" through dealing with the death of his mother, the depression of his father Jared, the rugged companionship of his brother Tom, and the mischief of his uncle Burley. Kirkus Review concludes, "A sensitive adolescent theme is handled rather poetically, but so uniform in tone that no drama is generated and no sense of time passing is felt."[60]

A Place on Earth (1967/1983)

Set in the critical year of 1945, this novel focuses on farmer Mat Feltner's struggle over the news that his son Virgil has been listed as missing in action while also telling multiple tales of the lives of other Port William residents, such as Burley Coulter, Jack Beechum, Ernest Finley, Ida and Gideon Crop. Reprinting by North Point Press in 1983 allowed Berry to radically revise the novel,[61] removing almost a third of its original length.

The Memory of Old Jack (1974)

This third novel of Port William begins with Jack Beechum as a very old man in 1952 and continues back into his youth and maturity to uncover his life and work as a dedicated farmer, conflicted husband, and living link to past generations. The story ranges from the Civil War to just past World War II.

Remembering (1988)

In Berry's fourth novel, an adult Andy Catlett wanders through San Francisco remembering, but feeling alienated from, his native Port William. He struggles to come to terms with himself, his marriage, his farm, and the distorted values of American society.

A World Lost (1996)

Young Andy Catlett's uncle Andrew had been murdered back in 1944, and now an adult Andy is reconstructing the event and its aftermath. "Looking back with a mixture of a young boy's incomprehension and an older man's nostalgia, Andy evokes the past not as a narrative but as a series of disembodied fragments in the flow of time."[62] In this fifth novel of Port William, Berry considers the violence of men and its impact on the family and community that must come to terms with it. "Berry shows us the psychic costs of misplaced family pride and social rigidity, and yet he also celebrates the benevolent blessing of familial love. This is simple, soul-satisfying storytelling, augmented by understated humor and quiet insight."[63]

Jayber Crow (2000)

Port William's barber recounts his life's journey in Berry's sixth novel. Jayber's early life as an orphan near Port William is followed by studies towards a possible vocation to Church ministry. A questioning mind, however, sends him in other directions until he finds himself back in Port William with an ever-growing commitment to that place and its people. As Publisher's Weekly notes, "Crow's life, which begins as WWI is about to erupt, is emblematic of a century of upheaval, and Berry's anecdotal and episodic tale sounds a challenge to contemporary notions of progress. It is to Berry's credit that a novel so freighted with ideas and ideology manages to project such warmth and luminosity."[64]

Hannah Coulter (2004)

Berry's seventh novel presents a concise vision of Port William's "membership." The story encompasses Hannah's life, including the Great Depression, World War II, the postwar industrialization of agriculture, the flight of youth to urban employment, and the consequent remoteness of grandchildren. The tale is told in the voice of an old woman twice widowed, who has experienced much loss yet has never been defeated. Somehow, lying at the center of her strength is the "membership"—the fact that people care for each other and, even in absence, hold each other in a kind of presence. All in all, Hannah Coulter embodies many of the themes of Berry's Port William saga.

Andy Catlett: Early Travels (2006)

Andy Catlett, age nine, makes his first solo journey to visit with both sets of grandparents in Port William. The New York Times reviewer notes, "What the grown-up Andy recalls of that experience is transformed into 'a sort of homage' to a now-vanished world. Title characters from Berry's earlier Port William volumes — Jayber Crow, Old Jack, Hannah Coulter — appear here in affectionate cameos as the adult Andy, echoing Wordsworth, observes that 'in my memory, all who were there ... seem now to be gathered into a love that is at once a boy's and an aging man's.'"[65]

Bibliography

Fiction

Title Year Publisher Reprinted/Revised ISBN Notes
Nathan Coulter 1960 Houghton Mifflin, Boston North Point (1985), Counterpoint (2008) 1582434093 Also in Three Short Novels, 2002

Heavily revised in 1985, including the removal of the last four chapters.

A Place on Earth 1967 Harcourt, Brace & World, New York Avon (1969), North Point (1983), Counterpoint (2001) 1582431248 Heavily revised in 1983
The Memory of Old Jack 1974 Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, New York Counterpoint (2001) 1582430438
The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership 1986 North Point, San Francisco 0865472165 Also in That Distant Land: The Collected Stories, 2004
Remembering 1988 North Point, San Francisco Counterpoint (2008) 1582434158 Also in Three Short Novels, 2002
Fidelity: Five Stories 1992 Pantheon, New York 0679748318 Also in That Distant Land: The Collected Stories, 2004
Watch With Me and Six Other Stories of the Yet-Remembered Ptolemy Proudfoot and His Wife, Miss Minnie, Née Quinch 1994 Pantheon, New York 0679758542 Also in That Distant Land: The Collected Stories, 2004
A World Lost 1996 Counterpoint, Washington, DC 1582434182 Also in Three Short Novels, 2002
Jayber Crow 2000 Counterpoint, Washington, DC 1582431604
Three Short Novels (Nathan Coulter, Remembering, A World Lost) 2002 Counterpoint, Washington, DC 1582431787
Hannah Coulter 2004 Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington, DC Counterpoint, Berkeley (2007) 1593760361 In 2007 Shoemaker & Hoard became part of Counterpoint LLC, Berkeley, CA
That Distant Land: The Collected Stories 2004 Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington, DC Counterpoint, Berkeley (2007) 159376054X In 2007 Shoemaker & Hoard became part of Counterpoint LLC, Berkeley, CA
Andy Catlett: Early Travels 2006 Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington, DC Counterpoint, Berkeley (2007) 1593761646 In 2007 Shoemaker & Hoard became part of Counterpoint LLC, Berkeley, CA
Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World 2009 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1582436401 Available online as "Whitefoot", Orion Magazine. January/February 2007
A Place in Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership 2012 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1619021889

Uncollected short stories

Nonfiction

Title Year Publisher Reprinted/Revised ISBN Notes
The Long-Legged House 1969 Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich; New York Shoemaker & Hoard (2004), Counterpoint (2012) 69012028
The Hidden Wound 1970 Houghton Mifflin Counterpoint (2010) 1582434867
The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge 1971 U P Kentucky; Lexington North Point (1991), Shoemaker & Hoard (2006) 1593760922 Photographs by Ralph Eugene Meatyard
A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural & Agricultural 1972 Harcourt, Brace; New York Shoemaker & Hoard (2004), Counterpoint (2012) 1593760922
The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture 1977 Sierra Club, San Francisco Avon Books (1978), Sierra Club/Counterpoint (third edition, 1996) 0871568772
The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural 1981 North Point, San Francisco Counterpoint (2009) 1582434840
Recollected Essays: 1965–1980 1981 North Point, San Francisco 086547026X
Standing by Words 1983 North Point, San Francisco Shoemaker & Hoard (2005), Counterpoint (2011) 1582437459
Meeting the Expectations of the Land: Essays in Sustainable Agriculture and Stewardship 1986 North Point, San Francisco 086547172X Editor with Wes Jackson and Bruce Colman
Home Economics: Fourteen Essays 1987 North Point, San Francisco Counterpoint (2009) 1582434859
Descendants and Ancestors of Captain James W. Berry 1990 Hub, Bowling Green, KY With Laura Berry
Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work 1990 U P of Kentucky 0813109426
What Are People For? 1990 North Point, San Francisco Counterpoint (2010) 1582434875
Standing on Earth: Selected Essays 1991 Golgonooza Press, UK 0903880466
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community 1992 Pantheon, New York 0679756515
Another Turn of the Crank 1996 Counterpoint, Washington, DC 1887178287
Grace: Photographs of Rural America 2000 Safe Harbor Books, New London, NH 0966579836 Photographs by Gregory Spaid, essay by Gene Logsdon, story by Wendell Berry
Life Is a Miracle 2000 Counterpoint, Washington, DC 1582431418
In the Presence of Fear: Three Essays for a Changed World 2001 Orion, Great Barrington, MA 0913098604
The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry 2002 Counterpoint, Washington, DC 1582431469
Citizens Dissent: Security, Morality, and Leadership in an Age of Terror 2003 Orion, Great Barrington, MA 0913098620 With David James Duncan. Foreword by Laurie Lane-Zucker
Citizenship Papers 2003 Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington, DC Counterpoint (2014) 1619024470
Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy 2004 U P of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 0813123275 Photographs by James Baker Hall
Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings about Love, Compassion & Forgiveness 2005 Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington, DC 1593761007
The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays 2005 Shoemaker & Hoard Counterpoint (2006) 1593761198
Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food 2009 Counterpoint, Berkeley 158243543X
Imagination in Place 2010 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1582437068
What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth 2010 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1582436061
The Poetry of William Carlos Williams of Rutherford 2011 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1582437149
It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays 2012 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1619021145
Distant Neighbors: The Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder 2014 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1619023059
Our Only World: Ten Essays 2015 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1619024888

Uncollected essays

Poetry

Title Year Publisher Reprinted/Revised ISBN Notes
The Broken Ground 1964 Harcourt Brace & World, New York
November twenty six nineteen hundred sixty three 1964 Braziller, New York Art by Ben Shahn
Openings 1968 Harcourt Brace & World, New York 0156700123
Farming: A Hand Book 1970 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York Counterpoint, Berkeley (2011) 1582437637
The Country of Marriage 1973 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York 1619021080
An Eastward Look 1974 Sand Dollar, Berkeley
Sayings and Doings 1974 Gnomon, Lexington, KY 0917788036
Clearing 1977 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York 0151181500
A Part 1980 North Point, San Francisco 0865470081
The Wheel 1982 North Point, San Francisco 0865470782
The Collected Poems: 1957–1982 1985 North Point, San Francisco 0865471975
Sabbaths: Poems 1987 North Point, San Francisco 0865472904
Traveling at Home 1988 The Press of Appletree Alley, Lewisburg PA North Point (1989) 1582437645
Entries 1994 Pantheon, New York Counterpoint, Washington DC (1997) 1887178376
The Farm 1995 Larkspur, Monterey KY Illustrations by Carolyn Whitesel
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997 1998 Counterpoint, Washington DC 1582430063 Later included in This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected and New 1979–2013
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry 1999 Counterpoint, Washington DC 1582430373
The Gift of Gravity, Selected Poems, 1968–2000 2002 Golgonooza Press, UK
Sabbaths 2002 2004 Larkspur, Monterey KY Later included in This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected and New 1979–2013
Given: New Poems 2005 Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington DC 1593760612 Partially included in This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected and New 1979–2013
Window Poems 2007 Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington DC 1582436231 Originally published in Openings (1968)
The Mad Farmer Poems 2008 Counterpoint, Berkeley 161902277X Originally published in Farming: A Handbook, The Country of Marriage, A Part, and Entries
Sabbaths 2006 2008 Larkspur, Monterey KY Later included in This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected and New 1979–2013
Leavings 2010 Counterpoint, Berkeley 158243624X Partially included in This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected and New 1979–2013
Sabbaths 2009 2011 Sewanee Review, Spring 2011 Later included in This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected and New 1979–2013
New Collected Poems 2012 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1582438153
This Day: Sabbath Poems Collected and New 1979–2013 2013 Counterpoint, Berkeley 1619021986
Terrapin and Other Poems 2014 Counterpoint, Berkeley 161902425X Illustrated by Tom Pohrt
Sabbaths 2013 2015 Larkspur, Monterey, KY Wood engravings by Wesley Bates

Interviews

Forewords, introductions, prefaces, and afterwords

Title Author Year Publisher ISBN
Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work Meine, Curt D. 2010 U of Wisconsin P 9780299249045
The Caudills of the Cumberlands: Anne's Story of Life with Harry Cummins, Terry 2013 Butler Books; 9781935497684
Driftwood Valley: A Woman Naturalist in the Northern Wilderness Stanwell-Fletcher, Theodora C. 1999 Oregon State U P 9780870715242
Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Conservation Nabhan, Gary Paul 2002 U of Arizona P 9780816522590
God and Work: Aspects of Art and Tradition Keeble, Brian 2009 World Wisdom Books 9781933316680
Great Possessions: An Amish Farmer's Journal Kline, David 2001 The Wooster Book Company 9781888683226
The Holy Earth Bailey, Liberty Hyde 2015 Counterpoint 9781619025875
Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World Keogh, Martin (ed.) 2010 North Atlantic Books 9781556439193
James Archambeault's Historic Kentucky Archambeault, James 2006 U P of Kentucky 9780813124209
Kentucky's Natural Heritage: An Illustrated Guide to Biodiversity Abernathy, Greg (ed.) 2010 U P of Kentucky 9780813125756
Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight Wirzba, Norman 2006 Brazos P 9781587431654
Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness Reece, Erik 2006 Riverbed 9781594482366
The Man Who Created Paradise Logsdon, Gene 2001 Ohio U P 9780821414071
The Meat You Eat: How Corporate Farming Has Endangered America's Food Supply Midriff, Ken 2005 St. Martin's Griffin 9780312325367
Missing Mountains Johansen, Kristin (ed.) 2005 Wind Publications 9781893239494
My Mercy Encompasses All: The Koran's Teachings on Compassion, Peace and Love Shah-Kazemi, Reza 2007 Counterpoint 9781593761448
Nature as Measure: The Selected Essays of Wes Jackson Jackson, Wes 2011 Counterpoint 9781582437002
The One-Straw Revolution Fukuoka, Masanobu 2009 NYRB Classics 9781590173138
The Pattern of a Man & Other Stories Still, James 2001 Gnomon P 9780917788758
Pedestrian Photographs Merrill, Larry 2008 U of Rochester P 9781580462907
The Prince's Speech: On the Future of Food HRH The Prince of Wales 2012 Rodale Press 9781609614713
Ralph Eugene Meatyard Gassan, Arnold 1970 Gnomon P ASIN: B001GECZNY
Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible Davis, Ellen F. 2008 Cambridge U P 9780521732239
Soil And Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture Howard, Albert 2007 U P of Kentucky 9780813191713
Stone Walls: Personal Boundaries Cook, Mariana 2011 Damiani 9788862081696
The Embattled Wilderness: The Natural and Human History of the Robinson Forest and the Fight for Its Future Reece, Erik and James J. Krupka 2013 U of Georgia P 9780820341231
The Toilet Papers: Recycling Waste and Conserving Water Van der Ryn, Sim 1978 Ecological Design P 9781890132583
To a Young Writer Stegner, Wallace 2009 Red Butte P 9780874809985
Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture Smith, J. Russell 1987 Island P 9780933280441
Waste Land: Meditations on a Ravaged Landscape Hanson, David T. 1997 Aperture 9780893817268
We All Live Downstream: Writings About Mountaintop Removal Howard, Jason 2009 MotesBooks 9781934894071
The Woodcuts of Harlan Hubbard Hubbard, Harlan 1994 U P of Kentucky 9780813118796

Awards

Award Year Granting Institution Notes
Wallace Stegner Fellowship 1958 Stanford University [77]
Guggenheim Fellowship 1961 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation [78]
Rockefeller Fellowship 1965 The Rockefeller Foundation [79]
Arts and Letters Award 1971 American Academy of Arts and Letters [80]
Poets' Prize 2000 Nicholas Roerich Museum
Thomas Merton Award 1999 Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Social Justice [81]
Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry 1994 The Sewanee Review and the University of the South [82]
Art of Fact Award 2006 SUNY Brockport Writers Forum and M&T Bank [83]
Kentuckian of the Year 2005 Kentucky Monthly [84]
Premio Artusi 2008 La Città di Forlimpopoli [85]
The Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement 2009 Fellowship of Southern Writers [86]
The National Humanities Medal 2010 National Endowment for the Humanities [87]
The 41st Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 2012 National Endowment for the Humanities [88]
The Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award 2012 Tulsa Library Trust [89]
Russell Kirk Paideia Prize 2012 Circe Institute [90]
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2013 American Academy of Arts and Sciences [91]
The Roosevelt Institute's Freedom Medal 2013 The Roosevelt Institute [92]
The Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award 2013 Dayton Literary Peace Prize [93]
The Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion 2013 American Academy of Religion [94]
The Alan Tate Poetry Prize 2014 The Sewanee Review [95]
The Dean's Cross for Servant Leadership in Church and Society 2014 Virginia Theological Seminary [96]
Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame 2015 The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning [97]
The American Food and Farming Award 2015 The Center for Food Safety [98]
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award 2016 National Book Critics Circle [99]
The Sidney Lanier Prize 2016 Center for Southern Studies at Mercer University [100]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Wendell E. Berry biography". National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Dayton Literary Peace Prize names distinguished achievement award recipient". Dayton Daily News. August 12, 2013. Retrieved August 12, 2013.
  3. ↑ Eblen, Tom (January 31, 2015). "At Hall of Fame ceremony, Wendell Berry laments 'public silence' on Ky. writers' work". Lexington Herald-Leader. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
  4. ↑ Berry, Wendell. My Conversation with Gurney Norman. Retrieved July 30, 2010.
  5. ↑ Menand, Louis (January 7, 2009). "Show or Tell: A Critic at Large: The New Yorker". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 13, 2009.
  6. 1 2 3 Angyal, Andrew (1995). Wendell Berry. New York: Twayne. p. 139. ISBN 0-8057-4628-5.
  7. ↑ Davenport, Guy (1991). "Tom and Gene". Father Louie: Photographs of Thomas Merton by Ralph Eugene Meatyard. New York: Timken. ISBN 978-0943221090.
  8. ↑ Both published in The Long-Legged House. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1969 (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004). ISBN 9781593760137
  9. ↑ "The Quivira Coalition's 6th Annual Conference" (PDF). p. 14.
  10. ↑ "The Brian Lehrer Show". WNYC.org. October 17, 2013. I'm not a Baptist in any formal way. I go to the Baptist church, where my wife plays the piano, on days of bad weather. On days of good weather, I ramble off into the woods somewhere. I am a person who takes the Gospel seriously, but I have had trouble conforming my thoughts to a denomination.
  11. ↑ Berry, Wendell (1993). "Christianity and the Survival of Creation". Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community. New York: Pantheon. ISBN 9780679423942.
  12. ↑ Berger, Rose Marie (July 2004). "Web Exclusive: A Sojourner Interview with Wendell Berry". Well, Christendom is all right, but it doesn't have to exclude everybody else. It doesn't have to go to war against them. And it doesn't have to be so stupid as to condemn other faiths that it doesn't know anything about
  13. ↑ "Key Individuals of The Temenos Academy". Temenosacademy.org. 2009. Retrieved July 13, 2009.
  14. ↑ Berry, Wendell. The Long-Legged House. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004. p.64
  15. ↑ Vance, Laurence (December 4, 2006). "Bill Kauffman: American Anarchist". LewRockwell.com.
  16. ↑ Berry, Wendell. The Gift of Good Land. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2009. pp.161–170
  17. ↑ "The National Security Strategy 2002". archives.gov. November 4, 2007. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  18. ↑ Berry, Wedell. "A Citizen's Response to the National Security Strategy". Orion. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  19. 1 2 Jackson, Wes; Berry, Wendell (5 January 2009). "A 50-Year Farm Bill". The New York Times. (subscription required (help)).
  20. ↑ "Q&A: Changing Farming's Uncertain Future". The Washington Post. July 22, 2009. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  21. ↑ "Wendell Berry Makes Public Statement on the Death Penalty". Danzig U.S.A. January 29, 2009. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  22. ↑ "Kentucky writers urge moratorium on death penalty". Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. November 25, 2009. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  23. ↑ "Climate Activists Block Gates to D.C. Coal Plant". Democracy Now!. March 3, 2009. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  24. ↑ "NAIS Comments".
  25. ↑ Michaelis, Kristen. "Wendell Berry Picks Jail Over NAIS". Food Renegade. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  26. ↑ Shannon, Ronica (November 7, 2009). "Local group joins protest of coal-burning power plant". Richmond Register. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  27. ↑ Melnykovych, Andrew (February 28, 2011). "PSC approves EKPC request to cancel power plant". Commonwealth of Kentucky. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  28. ↑ Truman, Cheryl (June 23, 2010). "Wendell Berry pulling his personal papers from UK". Lexington Herald-Leader. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  29. ↑ Truman, Cheryl (August 15, 2012). "Author Wendell Berry donates papers to Kentucky Historical Society". Lexington Herald-Leader. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  30. ↑ Hale, Jon (September 29, 2010). "Environmentalists and industry supporters turn out for Louisville coal ash hearing". The Rural Blog. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  31. ↑ "Opponents of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Occupy Kentucky Governor's Office". Democracy Now!. February 14, 2011. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  32. ↑ Cheves, John (February 15, 2011). "Sit-in at Kentucky governor's office ends with 'I Love Mountains' rally". Lexington Herald-Leader. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  33. ↑ "The Berry Center". berrycenter.org. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  34. 1 2 Dreher, Rod (June 5, 2006). "All-American Anarchists". The American Conservative. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  35. ↑ White, Richard (1995). "'Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?': Work and Nature". In Cronon, William. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. New York: Norton. p. 179. ISBN 9780393038729.
  36. ↑ Berry, Wendell (1981). The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural. San Francisco: North Point. ISBN 0-86547-052-9.
  37. ↑ Orr, David (April 16, 2008). "The designer's challenge". eoearth.org. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  38. ↑ Luoni, Stephen (December 21, 2005). "Solving for Pattern: Development of Place-Building Design Models". DesignIntelligence. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  39. ↑ The poem has been published only in the limited edition chapbook Sabbaths 1987. (Monterey, Kentucky: Larkspur, 1991).
  40. ↑ Wendell Berry's poem "Santa Clara Valley" Archived April 27, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
  41. ↑ Kingsley, Simon (August 30, 2006). "Features eligible for Teutonic coin". Variety. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  42. ↑ Farming: A Hand Book. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1970.
  43. ↑ A Part. San Francisco: North Point, 1980.
  44. ↑ Openings. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1968.
  45. ↑ Given: New Poems. Washington D. C.: Shoemaker & Hoard. 2005.
  46. ↑ Triggs, Jeffery A. (1988). "Moving the Dark to Wholeness: The Elegies of Wendell Berry". Rutgers University Libraries. doi:10.7282/T3QZ2CQ0. Retrieved 22 August 2015.
  47. ↑ Angyal, Andrew. Wendell Berry. New York: Twayne, 1995, p.119. ISBN 0-8057-4628-5.
  48. ↑ Angyal, Andrew. Wendell Berry. New York: Twayne, 1995, p.116
  49. ↑ Berry, Wendell. Standing by Words. San Francisco: North Point, 1983, p.80.
  50. ↑ Berry, Wendell. Standing by Words. San Francisco: North Point, 1983, p.85.
  51. ↑ Basney, Lionel. 175. "Five Notes on the Didactic Tradition, in Praise of Wendell Berry" in Paul Merchant, editor. Wendell Berry (American Authors Series). Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence, 1991. pp.174–183.
  52. ↑ Berry, Wendell. "The Responsibility of the Poet." What Are People For? New York: North Point, 1990. p.88.
  53. ↑ Berry, Wendell. "The Responsibility of the Poet." What Are People For? New York: North Point, 1990. p.89.
  54. ↑ Goodrich, Janet. The Unforeseen Self in the Works of Wendell Berry. U of Missouri P, 2001. p.21.
  55. ↑ Fisher-Smith, Jordan (1993). "Field Observations: An Interview with Wendell Berry". EnviroArts: Orion Online. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  56. ↑ Cochrane, Willard Wesley. The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis. U of Minnesota P, 1993. pp.122–149.
  57. ↑ Berry, Wendell. "Imagination in Place." The Way of Ignorance. Washington, D. C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005. p.50.
  58. ↑ "Imagination in Place" in Imagination in Place. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2010. p.15.
  59. ↑ Abbott, Dean (2 December 2014). "The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry: A Review". Above the Fray. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  60. ↑ ""Nathan Coulter" by Wendell Berry". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  61. ↑ "Author's Note", A Place on Earth. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 1999. p.xi.
  62. ↑ Harshaw, Tobin (November 3, 1996). "A World Lost". The New York Times. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  63. ↑ "Fiction Book Review: "A World Lost" by Wendell Berry". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  64. ↑ "Fiction Book Review: "Jayber Crow" by Wendell Berry". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  65. ↑ Hoffman, Roy (January 28, 2007). "Boy on the Bus". The New York Times. (subscription required (help)).
  66. ↑ "PEN/O. Henry Prize Story 2012: Berry, Nothing Living Lives Alone".
  67. ↑ "Threepenny: Berry, The Branch Way".
  68. ↑ "Web Exclusive: Wendell Berry interview complete text, Sojourners Magazine/July 2004". Sojo.net. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  69. ↑ "Field Observations". Arts.envirolink.org. Retrieved 2010-07-30.
  70. ↑ "Wendell Berry". WNYC.org. 2013-10-17. Retrieved 2013-11-02.
  71. ↑ "A Citizen and a Native:". Nantahalareview.org. November 16, 2003. Retrieved 2010-07-30.
  72. ↑ Merchant, Paul, ed. Wendell Berry (American Authors Series). Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence, 1991.
  73. ↑ "Wendell Berry Interview". Web.archive.org. February 6, 2006. Archived from the original on February 6, 2006. Retrieved 2010-07-30.
  74. ↑ "Monday, November 30, 2009 | The Diane Rehm Show from WAMU and NPR". Wamu.org. November 30, 2009. Retrieved 2010-07-30.
  75. ↑ "Friday, October 4, 2013". Retrieved 2013-10-05.
  76. ↑ "Wendell Berry, Burkean". The American Conservative. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  77. ↑ Andrew J. Angyal, Wendell Berry. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995. 13
  78. ↑ Andrew J. Angyal, Wendell Berry. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995. 16
  79. ↑ Andrew J. Angyal, Wendell Berry. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995. 22
  80. ↑ "Award Winners". American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  81. ↑ http://thomasmertoncenter.org/about-us/past-merton-award-winners/ "Thomas Merton Awardees"
  82. ↑ "Aiken Taylor Award Winners". Sewanee Review. 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  83. ↑ Mascari, Nicholas (April 18, 2006). "News Bureau Wendell Berry to Receive Art of Fact Award April 26". The College at Brockport, State University of New York. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  84. ↑ "2015 Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame". kentuckymonthly.com.
  85. ↑ "Premi Artusi".
  86. ↑ http://thefsw.org/page/awards/
  87. ↑ Clemons, Becca (March 2, 2011). "Kentucky author Wendell Berry awarded National Humanities Medal". The Kentucky Kernel. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  88. ↑ "Wendell E. Berry delivers 41st Jefferson Lecture". National Endowment for the Humanities. April 23, 2012. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  89. ↑ "Meet Wendell Berry, Winner of the 2012 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award", StudioTulsa, KWGS, December 5, 2012 (includes audio interview).
  90. ↑ Kern, David (December 2, 2011). "Announcing the 2012 Paideia Prize Winner: Mr. Wendell Berry". Circe Institute. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  91. ↑ "2013 Fellows and Their Affiliations at the Time of Election" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 2013. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  92. ↑ "The 2013 Four Freedoms Awards". Roosevelt Institute. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  93. ↑ "Dayton Literary Peace Prize winners honored Sunday". Dayton Business Journal. November 4, 2013. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  94. ↑ "Wendell Berry Receives Marty Award". American Academy of Religion. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
  95. ↑ "Announcement of Prizes for 2014". The Sewanee Review. 2014. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  96. ↑ "Virginia Theological Seminary".
  97. ↑ "Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame: Wendell Berry's Remarks - The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning". The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. February 5, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2015.
  98. ↑ "Center for Food Safety - News Room - Wendell Berry Honored with First Annual American Food & Farming Award". Center for Food Safety.
  99. ↑ "Critical Mass: The Blog of the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors".
  100. ↑ "Center for Southern Studies to Award Sidney Lanier Prize to Wendell Berry".

Further reading

External links

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