Part A: Poems

by Wendell Berry

Berry, Wendell

Genres: Poetry

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

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."

Reviews

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charming Agrarian poems, Berry writes of things some might consider old fashioned but are as such more relevant now. It seems humanity is insistent on losing its way, and the simple life described by Berry, still full of immediacy and passion, serves in some way as a clarion call to a more natural form of living. Favorites here include: A Purification, To What Listens, A Meeting, and July, 1773.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

“As before the beginning, nothing is there.
Human wrong is in the cause, human
ruin in the effect -but no matter;
all will be lost, no matter the reason.
Nothing, having arrived, will stay.
The earth, even, is like a flower, so soon
passeth it away. And yet this nothing
is the seed of all- the clear eye
of Heaven, where all the worlds appear.”

[Bobby · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first foray into Wendell Berry's vast catalog. A meditator on the natural and spiritual, Berry writes with an intimacy that goes beyond simple musings about the color of leaves or a distant God. These poems have a rich, living feel that can only come from someone who has spent a lot of time in honest contemplation and physical experience. After 20 pages, I found myself pining for a (surely romanticized) small farmstead bordered by an old forest hiding streams and surrounding hills, envisioning myself in a rocking chair on the front porch, coffee in my calloused, worn hands. A complete rural fantasy, but an appreciated one even if it only challenges me to think about my natural environments and small yet important place in a big Creation. I'm looking forward to reading more of Berry and everything it offers.

[Bonita Jewel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This poetry collection offers a great sampling of Wendell Berry's work, from pages-long narrative poems to short pieces of a single stanza.

I love the layers of some of these poems, rich and deep, like this one:

The Hidden Singer

The gods are less
for their love of praise.
Above and below them all
is a spirit that needs
nothing but its own
wholeness,
its health and ours.
It has made all things
by dividing itself.
It will be whole again.
To its joy we come
together--the seer
and the seen, the eater
and the eaten, the lover
and the loved. In our joining it knows
itself. It is with us then,
not as the gods
whose names crest
in unearthly fire,
but as a little bird
hidden in the leaves
who sings quietly
and waits
and sings.

[Jordan Kinsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Berry's works in chronological order, one soon notices that he presented his gifts to the world in a pattern of book-of-essays, book-of-poems, book-of-essays, book-of-poems...so on. Reading them this way, one soon notices that the one amplifies and magnifies the other. And vice versa.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

lots of good poems in this selection

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The right poet, for the right time, in the right place. Berry’s poems speak to the sacredness of home, family,community and the land.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Berry writes about universal human truths, framed through simple moments—tied up with complex emotions—observed in a life lived closer to nature.

[Dan Kuras · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems I can read while walking and feel carried and rooted at once.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A small book that has some very good poems in it.

[Carole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not Berry's best poetry, but still a charming volume.