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New Collected Poems: Poems, 1964 - 2010
A stunning poetry collection from the revered Kentucky poet—featuring nearly 200 poems from his immensely popular collection, plus selections from the critically lauded Entries, Given, and Leavings “A straightforward search for a life connected to the soil, for marriage as a sacrament, and family life.” —New York Times Book Review In New Collected Poems, Berry reprints the nearly 200 hundred pieces in Collected Poems, along with the poems from his most recent collections—Entries, Given, and Leavings—to create an expanded collection, showcasing the work of a man heralded by The Baltimore Sun as “a sophisticated, philosophical poet in the line descending from Emerson and Thoreau . . . a major poet of our time.” Wendell Berry is the author of over 40 works of poetry, fiction, and non–fiction, and has been awarded numerous literary prizes, including the T.S. Eliot Prize, a National Institute of Arts and Letters award for writing, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Jean Stein Award, and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. While he began publishing work in the 1960s, Booklist has written that, “Berry has become ever more prophetic,” clearly standing up to the test of time.
395 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
Wendell Berry
304 books5,414 followersWendell Berry was a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of The Gift of Good Land (1981) and The Unsettling of America (1977). His attention to the culture and economy of rural communities is also found in the novels and stories of Port William, such as A Place on Earth (1967), Jayber Crow (2000), and That Distant Land (2004).
Berry was an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He was also a 2013 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, from 2014 to his death, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.
abridged from Wikipedia.
Berry was an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He was also a 2013 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, from 2014 to his death, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.
abridged from Wikipedia.
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May 19, 2023
‘Remembering who we are, we live in eternity.’
Wendell Berry is a sort of folk hero in the US midwest. When he isn’t farming or engaging in environmental activism, he’s penning gorgeous novels and poems, the latter of which have always been a sort of balm on my weary soul. I love to be outdoors in the peace of wild things, to sit on the banks of a stream and read with nothing but the rippling waters as my soundtrack, and this poem captures that feeling so elegantly. I just want to shout it out:
The Peace of Wild Things
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.
Likely his most famous poem, and one worth revisiting whenever that despair of the world nips at your heels. Berry is a perfect poet to recommend to people around West Michigan (and I do so often) as he captures the lovelier vibes of this region so well in his works. I once had a person enter the bookstore and was thrilled we had “so many books by his neighbor.” Come to find out they have neighboring farms and he told me how active Berry has always been in local politics and regional environmental protection work. So that was awesome. The Earth and all it’s treasures are a theme that permeate his works which often deal with existing peacefully within nature and cultivating it in a way that we can grow as people while nature grows wild around us. He deals with grief in very moving ways, and his poems are usually uplifting and healing. He is able to discuss love in ways that encompasses both love for one another and for nature so tightly bound together:
And when we speak together,
love, our words rise
like leaves, out of our fallen
words. What we have said
becomes an earth we live on
like two trees,
whose sheddings
enrich each other, making
both the source of each.
There’s a very spiritual aspect to his works that blend with an aim towards social justice, and when Berry wants to be cutting he throws heavy punches:
Questionnaire
1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.
2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.
3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.
4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.
5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.
Which, alright man, yea, fuck ‘em up, Berry. He has a series of longer poems titled The Mad Farmer Poems such as the Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front with lines like ‘what man / has not encountered he has not destroyed. / Ask the questions that have no answers.’ and sure it’s a bit corny and gets pretty religiously preachy at times but his heart is in the right place and its cool I guess. It is a very West Michigan “cool liberal white Christian” vibe, trust me that’s a thing here but without them we wouldn’t have most of the social justice marches that get organized locally. But anyways here’s another well known Berry poem:
Our Real Work
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Berry is rather prolific, with many novels and collections of essays. He has a sort of cranky old man vibe he likes to cultivate and it is rather endearing. You hear it in his essays, but you can really feel it in his poems in a way that seems like hanging with your grandfather. I’ve always enjoyed his self-reflection in the poem 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.
He also can write really succinct poems that say a lot, and for that I really appreciate him. I have a public poetry project where I write poems I love on little paintings I’ve made and I use Berry quite often for that reason (well, and people around here love him. If you ask people in West Michigan who say they like poetry, the most common answer is Mary Oliver but Berry is a close second.
To Think of the Life of a Man
In a time that breaks
in cutting pieces all around,
when men, voiceless
against thing-ridden men,
set themselves on fire, it seems
too difficult and rare
to think of the life of a man
grown whole in the world,
at peace and in place.
But having thought of it
I am beyond the time
I might have sold my hands
or sold my voice and mind
to the arguments of power
that go blind against
what they would destroy.
While it can be a bit corny, I do have a huge soft spot for ole Wendell. Those who tend to enjoy religious-themed poetry will really enjoy him as well, as he has a huge collection of what he calls his Sabbath Poems, which are poems he writes about his walks he takes every sunday, and are often very religious in theme. Berry can capture nature so well, and especially the need to protect it and live sustainably to keep the world nourished and thriving so that we, too, can be nourished and thrive within it. A sweet and healing collection.
⅘
What We Need is Here
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
Wendell Berry is a sort of folk hero in the US midwest. When he isn’t farming or engaging in environmental activism, he’s penning gorgeous novels and poems, the latter of which have always been a sort of balm on my weary soul. I love to be outdoors in the peace of wild things, to sit on the banks of a stream and read with nothing but the rippling waters as my soundtrack, and this poem captures that feeling so elegantly. I just want to shout it out:
The Peace of Wild Things
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.
Likely his most famous poem, and one worth revisiting whenever that despair of the world nips at your heels. Berry is a perfect poet to recommend to people around West Michigan (and I do so often) as he captures the lovelier vibes of this region so well in his works. I once had a person enter the bookstore and was thrilled we had “so many books by his neighbor.” Come to find out they have neighboring farms and he told me how active Berry has always been in local politics and regional environmental protection work. So that was awesome. The Earth and all it’s treasures are a theme that permeate his works which often deal with existing peacefully within nature and cultivating it in a way that we can grow as people while nature grows wild around us. He deals with grief in very moving ways, and his poems are usually uplifting and healing. He is able to discuss love in ways that encompasses both love for one another and for nature so tightly bound together:
And when we speak together,
love, our words rise
like leaves, out of our fallen
words. What we have said
becomes an earth we live on
like two trees,
whose sheddings
enrich each other, making
both the source of each.
There’s a very spiritual aspect to his works that blend with an aim towards social justice, and when Berry wants to be cutting he throws heavy punches:
Questionnaire
1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.
2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.
3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.
4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.
5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.
Which, alright man, yea, fuck ‘em up, Berry. He has a series of longer poems titled The Mad Farmer Poems such as the Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front with lines like ‘what man / has not encountered he has not destroyed. / Ask the questions that have no answers.’ and sure it’s a bit corny and gets pretty religiously preachy at times but his heart is in the right place and its cool I guess. It is a very West Michigan “cool liberal white Christian” vibe, trust me that’s a thing here but without them we wouldn’t have most of the social justice marches that get organized locally. But anyways here’s another well known Berry poem:
Our Real Work
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Berry is rather prolific, with many novels and collections of essays. He has a sort of cranky old man vibe he likes to cultivate and it is rather endearing. You hear it in his essays, but you can really feel it in his poems in a way that seems like hanging with your grandfather. I’ve always enjoyed his self-reflection in the poem 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.
He also can write really succinct poems that say a lot, and for that I really appreciate him. I have a public poetry project where I write poems I love on little paintings I’ve made and I use Berry quite often for that reason (well, and people around here love him. If you ask people in West Michigan who say they like poetry, the most common answer is Mary Oliver but Berry is a close second.
To Think of the Life of a Man
In a time that breaks
in cutting pieces all around,
when men, voiceless
against thing-ridden men,
set themselves on fire, it seems
too difficult and rare
to think of the life of a man
grown whole in the world,
at peace and in place.
But having thought of it
I am beyond the time
I might have sold my hands
or sold my voice and mind
to the arguments of power
that go blind against
what they would destroy.
While it can be a bit corny, I do have a huge soft spot for ole Wendell. Those who tend to enjoy religious-themed poetry will really enjoy him as well, as he has a huge collection of what he calls his Sabbath Poems, which are poems he writes about his walks he takes every sunday, and are often very religious in theme. Berry can capture nature so well, and especially the need to protect it and live sustainably to keep the world nourished and thriving so that we, too, can be nourished and thrive within it. A sweet and healing collection.
⅘
What We Need is Here
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
January 31, 2013
Not long ago I saw an interview of Peter Matthiessen in which he was asked which writers he admires. The first he mentioned was Wendell Berry. His saying that was gratifying to me because Berry is one of 3 poets I've recently become attracted to because of his pastoral sensitivity, whose work creates a recognizable reality through the reflection of it. But it was also the way Matthiessen spoke of him I thought interesting: he called him a man in Kentucky who speaks the truth. And I recognized at once that it's so. Berry's poems strike the bell of being.
June 14, 2024
“Suppose we did our work
Like the snow, quietly, quietly,
Leaving nothing out.”
(Like Snow)
This is how Berry did his writing. He quietly left nothing out. The humanity, relatability, and conviction make this collection a true pleasure from which to both read and learn.
Like the snow, quietly, quietly,
Leaving nothing out.”
(Like Snow)
This is how Berry did his writing. He quietly left nothing out. The humanity, relatability, and conviction make this collection a true pleasure from which to both read and learn.
June 28, 2013
I checked this out on impulse at the library from a display. Prior to this, I had no familiarity with Wendell Berry as a poet; I had only a vague familiarity with him as a novelist, essayist, and lover of nature. While reading it, I began post-it flagging my favorite poems, only to find that I ended up with dozens of flags jutting out from the pages. Berry encapsulates much of the human experience in eloquent yet simple terms that speak to me. "Window Poems," for example, gives a glimpse of his life as he works by and gazes through a window. He writes:
He is given a fragment of time
in this fragment of the world.
He likes it pretty well.
--My feelings about life that I have never enunciated as well.
Possibly my favorite was his description of conversation with a loved one that matches my feelings of communication with my husband:
And when we speak together,
love, our words rise
like leaves, out of our fallen
words. What we have said
becomes an earth we live on
like two trees,
whose sheddings
enrich each other, making
both the source of each.
I intend to hurry and purchase this book at Amazon before its library due date. Wendell Berry is my new favorite poet.
He is given a fragment of time
in this fragment of the world.
He likes it pretty well.
--My feelings about life that I have never enunciated as well.
Possibly my favorite was his description of conversation with a loved one that matches my feelings of communication with my husband:
And when we speak together,
love, our words rise
like leaves, out of our fallen
words. What we have said
becomes an earth we live on
like two trees,
whose sheddings
enrich each other, making
both the source of each.
I intend to hurry and purchase this book at Amazon before its library due date. Wendell Berry is my new favorite poet.
October 25, 2024
Lots of my favorite writers serve as antidotes, in some way, to the pettiness and misery of the digital age. I love some of Wendell Berry’s poems way more than others, but all his writing is unified in an authentic vision of the world that’s unmoored to political and cultural trends: left, right, or center.
August 23, 2024
This was a mixed bag for me. As you can see it took me a year to read this, some of these poems I loved, some I didn't care for. I was a little surprised, because I sped through "A Timbered Choir" last year and loved it. But, that's life. And it won't stop me from trying others of his books in the future.
February 9, 2017
Even love must pass through loneliness,
*
All that has come to us
has come as the river comes,
given in passing away.
*
To love is to suffer—did I
know this when first
I asked you for your love?
I did not. And yet until
I knew, I could not know what
I asked, or gave. I gave
a suffering that I took: yours
and mine, mine when yours;
and yours I have feared most.
[...]
You look at me, you give
a light, which I bear and
return,
and we are held, and all
our time is held, in this
touching look—this touch
that, pressed against the touch
returning in the dark,
is almost sight. We burn
and see by our own light.
*
All that has come to us
has come as the river comes,
given in passing away.
*
To love is to suffer—did I
know this when first
I asked you for your love?
I did not. And yet until
I knew, I could not know what
I asked, or gave. I gave
a suffering that I took: yours
and mine, mine when yours;
and yours I have feared most.
[...]
You look at me, you give
a light, which I bear and
return,
and we are held, and all
our time is held, in this
touching look—this touch
that, pressed against the touch
returning in the dark,
is almost sight. We burn
and see by our own light.
December 8, 2021
Favorite Poem:
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
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.
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
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.
November 13, 2013
I was preconditioned to love this collection. Wendell Berry is among my favorite writers - of poetry, short story, novel, essay - and this volume gathers together some of the best poems of his career.
If you've heard friends rave about the man's work but haven't yet gotten your feet wet in it, this is a good place to start. Don't read it from cover to cover, but dip in at random spots and splash around a little.
If you've heard friends rave about the man's work but haven't yet gotten your feet wet in it, this is a good place to start. Don't read it from cover to cover, but dip in at random spots and splash around a little.
December 28, 2022
Many, many poems.
Some alright. Many amazing!
Some alright. Many amazing!
April 30, 2026
I enjoyed my leisurely stroll through this collection. Sometimes I can’t fathom what he means… other times he finds words for my heart’s song. I dog eared an excessive amount of pages- I will be back!
Did Not Finish
August 31, 2026I will read more of lovely Mr Berry, this one proved just a bit too cumbersome for me to get through! I made it about 40% & just wasn’t connected.
Update - just learned he passed away yesterday & me deciding to not finish his book on that same day feels terribly insulting of me. May the fault be stated to be with me & not the writer.
Update - just learned he passed away yesterday & me deciding to not finish his book on that same day feels terribly insulting of me. May the fault be stated to be with me & not the writer.
June 14, 2020
When I first sat down with New Collected Poems (a rather hefty volume), I counted the poems in it, and calculated how long it would take to finish if I read two a day. Assured that I would get through it before the end of the year, I gamely set off, not entirely sure what I would find in its pages. People kept dropping Berry's name in my path--different people, the sort I wouldn't expect to agree on books--so clearly, it was time to try him out, and a newfound love of reading poetry made this particular volume a good first choice.
But then, instead of stopping at two, I found myself reading "just one more", which turned into two or three or seven or fifteen. Some of them are bite-sized, so I needed very little encouragement to keep going. And then I found myself picking the book up during times of the day I've allotted to other sorts of reading, and then filling my commonplace book with lines and lines of the poems that made me smile and made me ache.
It's only the knowledge that I came so late to a true joy in poetry (rather than simply an appreciation for the talents of those who can write it beautifully) and that there is so much yet to read and to fall in love with that keeps me from simply starting over again at the beginning of New Collected Poems and reading them all again. But I will certainly be picking it up again, after I've gotten to spend some time with other poets.
But then, instead of stopping at two, I found myself reading "just one more", which turned into two or three or seven or fifteen. Some of them are bite-sized, so I needed very little encouragement to keep going. And then I found myself picking the book up during times of the day I've allotted to other sorts of reading, and then filling my commonplace book with lines and lines of the poems that made me smile and made me ache.
It's only the knowledge that I came so late to a true joy in poetry (rather than simply an appreciation for the talents of those who can write it beautifully) and that there is so much yet to read and to fall in love with that keeps me from simply starting over again at the beginning of New Collected Poems and reading them all again. But I will certainly be picking it up again, after I've gotten to spend some time with other poets.
March 29, 2013
Wendell Berry is one of those poets you hear about, whose name sound like a poet's name, whose work promises to be a return to the good dark loam of rural life and verse, but you never seem to get around to reading anything substantial by the man. He is an accomplished poet but this 400 page book does not help his cause. There are too many long poems whose themes get lost in a morass of "serious thoughts," somewhat like having and centric old guy lecture at you about life and death and marriage. On the other hand, his shorter poems are gems. When he relaxes and tells of his farmer's life, he is charming and vibrant. I'm not sure his feeble attempt at humor in the "mad farmer" poems works all that well, but his letters to other poets do swivel on a mordant wit. My favorite line in the book: "Practice resurrection ."
May 4, 2012
Wendell Berry takes the reader into the hillside farmland of Henry County, Kentucky to connect both himself and his readers with what is authentic in life. He removes the false notes of what passes for poetry--what is often jumbled, arrogant, and pretentious reflections of a poet in a mirror--to remind us that when properly cultivated words, like the soil can yield a bountiful harvest. These poems remind us of the beauty we can be rewarded with when we take the time to live responsibly and with open hearts. This is a book I am unable to say I finished. I will return to it again and again.
December 4, 2014
This new collection encompasses eleven previous books of poetry. Some I found inaccessible. Others I want to memorize. I smiled at the irony of reading "stay away from screens" as I read this book on my Kindle. I smiled at the two line poem entitled "Seventy Years" Well, anyhow, I am not going to die young.
Death is the subject of many poems; death, funerals, remembering, membership.
I don't foresee me reading through this book again, but I will revisit my favorites: "Her First Calf", "At a Country Funeral", "The Gathering", "The Blue Robe", "To My Mother".
Death is the subject of many poems; death, funerals, remembering, membership.
I don't foresee me reading through this book again, but I will revisit my favorites: "Her First Calf", "At a Country Funeral", "The Gathering", "The Blue Robe", "To My Mother".
June 23, 2017
Wendell Berry's poetry changes how I think about life, about faith, about creation, and about community. I have intentionally read through this book as slowly as possible, only breaking it open when I am in a quiet or beautiful setting. My only disappointment was finishing it.
Read
June 29, 2020Truly a joy to read- able to traverse the realms of politics, faith, love, and farming with staggering beauty.
Some favorite quotes:
"Sowing the seed, my hand is one with the earth. Wanting the seed to grow, my mind is one with the light. Hoeing the crop, my hands are one with the rain. Having cared for the plants, my mind is one with the air. Hungry and trusting, my mind is one with the earth. Eating the fruit, my body is one with the earth."
"Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for a new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here."
"When my last breath grows large and free in air, don't call it death...say that my flesh has a perfection in compliance with the grass, truer than any it could have striven for. You will recognize the earth in me, as before I wished to know it in myself."
"I part the out thrusting branches and come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees. Though I am silent there is singing around me. Though I am dark there is vision around me. Though I am heavy there is flight around me."
"Our hair turns white with our ripening as though to fly away in some coming wind, bearing the seed of what we know."
And so much more! Honestly just read it.
Some favorite quotes:
"Sowing the seed, my hand is one with the earth. Wanting the seed to grow, my mind is one with the light. Hoeing the crop, my hands are one with the rain. Having cared for the plants, my mind is one with the air. Hungry and trusting, my mind is one with the earth. Eating the fruit, my body is one with the earth."
"Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for a new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here."
"When my last breath grows large and free in air, don't call it death...say that my flesh has a perfection in compliance with the grass, truer than any it could have striven for. You will recognize the earth in me, as before I wished to know it in myself."
"I part the out thrusting branches and come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees. Though I am silent there is singing around me. Though I am dark there is vision around me. Though I am heavy there is flight around me."
"Our hair turns white with our ripening as though to fly away in some coming wind, bearing the seed of what we know."
And so much more! Honestly just read it.
August 25, 2025
Wendell Berry is my favorite poet and, unsurprisingly, this collection of poetry is my favorite out of the 20+ books of poetry that I’ve read this year. There are many poems I’ll be revisiting but a particular highlight is this one:
We Who Prayed And Wept
We who prayed and wept
for liberty from kings
and the yoke of liberty
accept the tyranny of things
we do not need.
In plenitude too free,
we have become adept
beneath the yoke of greed.
Those who will not learn
in plenty to keep their place
must learn it by their need
when they have had their way
and the fields spurn their seed.
We have failed Thy grace.
Lord, I flinch and pray,
send Thy necessity.
We Who Prayed And Wept
We who prayed and wept
for liberty from kings
and the yoke of liberty
accept the tyranny of things
we do not need.
In plenitude too free,
we have become adept
beneath the yoke of greed.
Those who will not learn
in plenty to keep their place
must learn it by their need
when they have had their way
and the fields spurn their seed.
We have failed Thy grace.
Lord, I flinch and pray,
send Thy necessity.
May 12, 2022
It took me over a year to read this collection. It was honestly one of those collections/books I wish would never end. Easy to pick up, enjoy a poem or two, and just think on the thoughtfulness Berry puts into every line. He is a rare breed of writer in America. He has not bought into political agenda, consumerism, or self-fulling religion. His reflections capture that tension between consumerism and a life of simplicity. Earth and natural beauty are to be admired more than beauty of human hands. It is a must read.
April 2, 2017
My friend gave me this book. At a time when I needed it, this book gave me peace.
It is poetry of the earth. The plowing and the harvest. The weight of the rocks and of the trees. It is sometimes drought and sometimes flood.
It is poetry of people. His family, his neighbors, writers he knows and the shared craft.
It is poetry of time. Months, seasons, generations. History and the future.
I will be reading it over and over again.
It is poetry of the earth. The plowing and the harvest. The weight of the rocks and of the trees. It is sometimes drought and sometimes flood.
It is poetry of people. His family, his neighbors, writers he knows and the shared craft.
It is poetry of time. Months, seasons, generations. History and the future.
I will be reading it over and over again.
March 20, 2023
Yes!! I have finished this book of poetry. It feels like I’ve just climbed Mount Everest.
It’s so hard to describe how I felt about these poems. Many of them feel so grumpy. Wendell Berry would not, I am sure, approve of my very nomadic, non-agrarian lifestyle. But he is so perfectly consistent, and so clear, and so poetic in his portrayal of the good life, it’s almost unthinkable to give this collection anything less than the perfect mark. And many of these poems are actual masterpieces.
I just wish the Sabbath poems were included.
It’s so hard to describe how I felt about these poems. Many of them feel so grumpy. Wendell Berry would not, I am sure, approve of my very nomadic, non-agrarian lifestyle. But he is so perfectly consistent, and so clear, and so poetic in his portrayal of the good life, it’s almost unthinkable to give this collection anything less than the perfect mark. And many of these poems are actual masterpieces.
I just wish the Sabbath poems were included.
August 14, 2024
Honor, respect, the natural world, commitment, hard work, community, friendship and family, marriage, faith, and farming. All woven together into simple, insightful, piercing, beautiful poetry. Berry is a prophet of our time. Praise God for this man!!
April 10, 2025
Adding this to my list of favorite books ever. Love his poetry.
October 9, 2022
*4.5 Stars*
This was my introduction to Berry and I must say: it was more lovely than I imagined it would be. His vision is so sharp, his words so haunting, that at times I could not follow. I wanted to go where his prophetic mind was leading, but I could not always get there. I want to try some of his essays next. I have a feeling they will be tender and spicy and prescient.
This was my introduction to Berry and I must say: it was more lovely than I imagined it would be. His vision is so sharp, his words so haunting, that at times I could not follow. I wanted to go where his prophetic mind was leading, but I could not always get there. I want to try some of his essays next. I have a feeling they will be tender and spicy and prescient.
December 6, 2020
I simply love the poetry of Wendell Berry. It is earthy, melodious, intimate and intellectual all at the same time. He finds expression for the joy and sorrow and the full range of emotions that I experience and sometimes cannot put into words. He is simply put, a treasure.
August 13, 2026
In honor of his life and in light of his death, a favorite poem from this collection:
The Ripening
The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us.
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young,
now count the cost of having been.
And yet as we know the dead
we grow familiar with the world.
We, who were young and loved each other
ignorantly, now come to know
each other in love, married
by what we have done, as much
as by what we intend. Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed
of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepares. But that is bitter
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer, we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of this world!
The Ripening
The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us.
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young,
now count the cost of having been.
And yet as we know the dead
we grow familiar with the world.
We, who were young and loved each other
ignorantly, now come to know
each other in love, married
by what we have done, as much
as by what we intend. Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed
of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepares. But that is bitter
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer, we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of this world!
August 14, 2013
I arrived at the last page of this book of poems last night but am not finished with the book. In fact, I am not finished with any of the Wendell Berry books that I've read. He writes in a simple, logical way that causes me to slow down and think, and wrestle and ponder. His works sticks with me and draws me back for reference. The bookseller (that sold me this book) matter-of-factly stated, "The world would be a better place if everyone would read a Wendell Berry book." I agree.
Here are some of my favorite poems and lines:
- The Peace of Wild Things (google this and read it AND then try to do it!)
- Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front - "Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed..."
-The Law That Marries All Things, "It is the great chorus of parts. The only outlawry is division."
-The Reassurer, (against political Bravo Sierra)
-Some Further Words; "the world is whole beyond human knowing."
-On the Theory of the Big Bang as the Origin of the Universe
"What banged? Before banging how did it get there? When it got there where was it?"
-Questionnaire asks brutal but necessary questions...
My favorite of all and my "mission" poem and maybe the best human description of the mission of the church:
February 2, 1968
In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.
Here are some of my favorite poems and lines:
- The Peace of Wild Things (google this and read it AND then try to do it!)
- Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front - "Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed..."
-The Law That Marries All Things, "It is the great chorus of parts. The only outlawry is division."
-The Reassurer, (against political Bravo Sierra)
-Some Further Words; "the world is whole beyond human knowing."
-On the Theory of the Big Bang as the Origin of the Universe
"What banged? Before banging how did it get there? When it got there where was it?"
-Questionnaire asks brutal but necessary questions...
My favorite of all and my "mission" poem and maybe the best human description of the mission of the church:
February 2, 1968
In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.
January 8, 2014
If there is such a thing as Father Earth, then this natural, mystic poet surely must be it. Berry’s collected poems cover a significant time frame, spanning almost 40 years. We delve deep into American roots; we become farmers, family, lovers and caretakers of the land. Berry mourns for his fallen beloved, he wages war against the very act of war, and he begs us to maintain an environment that we can all thrive within. His poetry is a communion with one another and he asks us to embrace the earth with our entire being. His earliest poetry is often prophetic as he predicts the destruction mankind will cause upon itself through over industrialization and the misuse of our natural resources. Wendell Berry is a gift to humanity and with his collection of poems he asks us to return to our original blessing, the earth.
August 30, 2014
Wendell Berry is one of the more under-rated poets of the last 50 years. His new collection of his best over that time demonstrates time and again his deep connection with the land, his profound but complex religious faith, and his lyrical ear. His poems can be read and appreciated by those who regularly read verse and those who seldom do.
That accessibility and his impatience with artifice in poetry or politics may suggest why some in the academic world ignore or disparage his writing.
The later collections are not as strong as those from 1994 and before. His elegies, especially the one for his grandfather, are haunting and universal. I highly recommend living with this collection for a while.
That accessibility and his impatience with artifice in poetry or politics may suggest why some in the academic world ignore or disparage his writing.
The later collections are not as strong as those from 1994 and before. His elegies, especially the one for his grandfather, are haunting and universal. I highly recommend living with this collection for a while.
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