Farming: A Hand Book

by Wendell Berry

The Kentucky poet's life and thought are mirrored in this collection of fifty-five pastoral pieces

Genres: Poetry, Agriculture, Nature, Fiction, Food

118 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

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

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any useful definition of modern conservatism—one far removed from the bloviations of Sean Hannity and the pieties of Mike Pence—should be broad enough to include poet and naturalist Wendell Berry. An environmental activist and pacifist, Berry’s politics are rooted in the great tradition of Jeffersonian Democracy, in his conviction that the small farm and the local community are central to our republic’s survival, that our fidelity to family and friends, our sense of reverence for the earth, spring from a cultivated affection for—and a commitment to—a particular place, individual people.

Wendell Berry began teaching at the University of Kentucky in 1964, and soon after bought a farm in Port Royal, not far from where he was born. He gave up teaching in 1977, and devoted himself full time to writing and farming for the next ten years.

This collection of poetry—his third—was released in 1970, about halfway between his transformation from professor to farmer, and I believe it to be Berry’s first completely successful, deeply original collection. It features, among other things, the first appearance of “The Mad Farmer,” speaker of eccentric aphorisms and habitual contrarian, but it includes many other wonderful pieces of well.

Here, just for a taste, are five maxims from the Mad Farmer and two short poems:

PRAYERS AND SAYINGS OF THE MAD FARMER

II

At night make me one with the darkness.
In the morning make me one with the light.

III

If a man finds it necessary to eat garbage, he should resist the temptation to call it a delicacy.

IV

Don’t pray for the rain to stop.
Pray for good luck fishing
when the river floods.

VIII

When I rise up
let me rise up joyful
like a bird

When I fall
let me fall without regret
like a leaf

XI

By the excellence of his work the workman is a neighbor. By selling only what he would not despise to own the salesman is a neighbor. By selling what is good his character survives his market.


TO KNOW THE DARK

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.


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.

[Brian Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now I just feel silly giving his works anything less than 5.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marcy got this for my birthday last year when I first started really getting into Wendell Berry and when we first started talking about growing gardens together. So the perfect gift at that time, and worth noting because my feelings for the collection are probably very biased because Marcy gave it to me. Been reading it in pieces over the last year, and it’s just incredible. Wendell is amazing. Here are some excerpts from the last few days’ reading

“The world as men have made it is an ungainly hardship that comes of forgetting there is other life than men have made.”

“And friend and friend, together though only in thought, our bond is speech grown out of native ground and laughter grown out of speech, surpassing all ends.”

“I think that some, maybe only a few, a man and woman here and there, must be willing to bear the fear of the worst they foresee, and worse than that, allow the best its chance.”

“The god I have always expected to appear at the woods’ edge, beckoning, I have always expected to be a great relisher of the world, its good grown immortal.”

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie
down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.*

A solid collection of verse about nature and life in general. You can sense that the Vietnam War was looming heavily on Berry's mind as you read some of the poems written during 1968.

I particularly liked this ode to green burials:

THE FARMER AMONG THE TOMBS

I am oppressed by all the room taken up by the dead,
their headstones standing shoulder to shoulder,
the bones imprisoned under them.
Plow up the graveyards! Haul off the monuments!
Pry open the vaults and coffins
so the dead may nourish their graves
and go free, their acres traversed all summer
by crop rows and cattle and foraging bees.

* from THE MAN BORN TO FARMING

[joel melton · Rating 5 out of 5]

some of these poems totally wrecked me with beauty.

one of my definitions of grace is when God uses beauty to convict me. this book was thus a vessel of grace.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I checked out this book I was extremely excited: a farming handbook by my new found mentor, Wendell Berry! Alas, I was disappointed when I saw that it was a book of poetry. I decided to give it a chance however and was pleasantly surprised. Berry writes the sort of poetry that I like: accessible, impressionist-like imagery, unique, interesting arresting use of words, etc. And about rural themes to boot! I raced through it because it became due at the library suddenly, otherwise I'd have copied down some of the more memorable stanzas and put one here.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Curiously, I found my way into this book of poems through a historical work on American space by J.B. Jackson. It's the first item in his bibliography; It's a great choice for understanding the topography of farming in America, and the constant churn in the landscape. It has four sections, broken down into three sections of poetry, and a particularly poignant play in the penultimate spot. I'd recommend it to anyone in search of a concise look at the American attitude about the land, at least in it's healthiest version.

[Jordan Kinsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This past week, Wendell Berry has felt less like an indulgence and more like a medication necessary to sustain life.

[Jeremiah Feddeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When they asked me would I like to contribute I said no, and when they had collected more than they needed, I gave them as much as I had.” I thought long and hard as to if I should give this a 1 or 5 star review. I just must not be as contrarian as Mr. Berry.

[Bethany ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to stop and sit this book down, and just absorb so many of these lines. These poems are rich with spiritual tones and love of nature.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A revelation. Must read more by Wendell Berry.

[Longfellow · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as my own poetry writing instincts veer toward nature poetry, I get only moderate enjoyment out of reading it. I don't read much poetry, but those poems I like best usually contain a surprising turn in the last couple of lines. Not all of these Berry poems lack this quality, but I think it's safe to say this strategic element isn't his goal. Rather, I would say that Berry's purposes are to observe, reflect on, and honor the subjects and settings of his poems, and this he achieves effectively.

A majority of this collection is concerned with capturing moments that strike the writer as profound, graceful, intimate, and inspiring of gratitude, a personal record of taking stock and giving thanks, if you will. Any of us would benefit from keeping such a record.

[Sanjuro · Rating 4 out of 5]

The temptation is to look to the "Mad Farmer" poems, as a dominant theme, and judge the whole on those. While I think the Mad Farmer poems are stellar, the whole collection features important work that I found evocative. "The Birth (Near Port William)," for example, drawing upon Berry's Port William stories, was an excellent poem. The collection features Berry's usual reflections on farming, humankind's relationship to the land, and the importance of relationship between humans. One dominant theme in this collection in particular was the way that man is drawn back into the earth itself, the way man becomes one with the earth, and in the end, as he does, his earthly accomplishments amount to little. His greatest accomplishment is to be bound to the earth and to feed it with the fibres of his own body. The land feeds man and man feeds the land, in a passionate cycle. He digs his hands into his land, and donates his corpse, and the two become one. Of course, there is a romanticism here, but one that Berry lives daily on his own farm in Port Royal. Stellar work, as is all of Berry's poetry.

[Caroline Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up--went searching for it actually--when one of the poems appeared in the book, "Learning to walk in the dark" by Barbara Brown Taylor. It did not disappoint! The middle section was not my favorite, and there is a play nestled in there too that I did not fully appreciate (it's got an interesting message, it just wasn't what I was enjoying most about the book). But there are several poems at the beginning that I dogeared for easy finding in the future, and the last two of the book sent shivers through me.

My favorites from this collection:
Water
Rain
To Know The Dark
Winter Nightfall
The Morning's News
In This World
A Praise
Song In A Year Of Catastrophe
The Sorrel Filly
To The Unseeable Animal

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

One poem especially grabbed my heart, Then Satisfaction of the Mad Farmer" in that this could have been a life path I could have chosen, that of a farmer vs the business career route I chose, but agriculture always dear and still so to my heart. As with other books of poetry I spread the reading out over a long period of time absorbing the poems, rereading and understanding the poets intent, observations and meaning.

[Lise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Berry's poetry. It really gets at the heart of what it means to work in sync with the natural world.

I didn't read the play at the middle of this -- just not my favorite form -- but I am gonna count it as read in 2020.

[Charity · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really fun to read, as it was published fairly early on in Wendell Berry's career, and you get to see some early iterations of themes and characters he would later write about in more detail. For example, Hannah Coulter.

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I wasn't a fan of the play in the middle, the poems were great.

[Patrick Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time spent reading poetry, especially Wendell Berry's poetry, is always time well spent.

[Manuel Chavarria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous, cover to cover

[Jill Rusin · Rating 5 out of 5]

WB is wonderful. Wonderful.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful poems, grounded in the land, good work, and good living. Clear-eyed, like hymns to a simpler life.

[Alex Hodgers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a classic that I return to.

[Luke McCarnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back to Port William, farming, and the river by poetry.

[Brandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

read

[Bethany T · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you can’t find me it’s because I moved to a farm in Arkansas. Thank you Wendell!

[Joseph Capdevielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me wake in the night
and hear it raining
and go back to sleep.

[Britt · Rating 3 out of 5]

An observant little read of tending the land, what it gives and what it takes.

[Hannah Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

the morning's news is one of the best poems I have ever read

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1971 and reissued for its fortieth anniversary (with an updated version of the brief one-act play “The Bringer of Water”), Farming: A Hand Book reminds us of what it is to be tethered to place, to tend to something from sowing to harvest, to put your hands in the good, rich soil and be nourished by it, to attune yourself to the rhythms of season and crop, to find meaning and purpose in the simple act of work, to stay in a place long enough for the intimacy of seeing to transform into the gift of being.

It’s easy enough to think these poems antiquated, their pastoral themes representative of a bygone era. Sadly, for many, perhaps they are. For the rest of us, they’re neither old nor old-fashioned but prescient and necessary, urgent even. In “The Wages of History” Berry writes, “… For generations to come we will not / know the decency and the poised ease / of living any day for that day’s sake, / or be graceful here like the wild / flowers blooming in the fields, / but must live drawn out and nearly / broken between past and future / because of history’s wages, / bad work left behind us, / demanding to be done again. And in “Awake at Night,” a lamentation on what was, what could be, and what may be: Late in the night I pay / the unrest I owe / to the life that has never lived / and cannot live now. / What the world could be / is my good dream / and my agony when, dreaming it, / I lie awake and turn / and look into the dark. / I think of a luxury / in the sturdiness and grace / of necessary things, not / in frivolity. That would heal / the earth, and heal men. But the end, too, is part / of the pattern, the last / labor of the heart: / to learn to lie still, / one with the earth / again, and let the world go.

I would argue there is as much activism, however veiled, in Farming as in any collection of Berry’s essays. Likely, some will be drawn to the former, while others to the latter. In either instance, the reader cannot but be moved to see the land, and, by extension, the world in a new light, and, if there is to be any hope of a future not on fire, to reappraise our dual roles as occupants and stewards of this increasingly fragile and interconnected planet.