The Country of Marriage

by Wendell Berry

The joys and serenity of marriage and the farmer's relationship with his land are explored in a collection of poems

Genres: Poetry, Marriage, Essays, Nonfiction, Christian, American, Nature

53 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

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

[David Kern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the collection of poetry that I love the most.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's National Poetry Month and I have been having a hard time finding books I'm in the mood to read (for every book I read and review picture 2-3 started and strewn around my house) - but I'm recording a podcast this week with a friend who loves Wendell Berry. And this past summer at a contemplative pedagogy retreat, we were read a Berry poem during one of our meditation sessions. It was perfect, written about Kentucky by a Kentucky man.

So I went poking around in Berry poetry collections, tasted and tried a few, and landed on this set. They are all very rural, everything is metaphor, land is marriage and love is the land, but it was exactly what I expected from Berry with moments of beauty and clarity that really stood out to me.

I would never expect my husband to write a poem about me or our marriage using a farming metaphor, but my husband is not Wendell Berry.

Kentucky River Junction
"..."the world that has tried us
and showed us its joy

was our bond
when we said nothing.
And we allowed it to be

with us, the new green
shining."

A Marriage, an Elegy
"They lived long, and were faithful
to the good in each other.
They suffered as their faith required.
Now their union is consummate
in earth, and the earth
is their communion. They enter
the serene gravity of the rain,
the hill's passage to the sea.
After long striving, perfect ease."

The Wild Geese (interesting that one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems is "Wild Geese")
"...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."

These poems were discussed on Episode 062 of the Reading Envy Podcast.

[Stephen Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s something so homey about Berry’s poetry; a pervasive sense of pleased contentment with the place around you. And it is not romanticized in my opinion. Reading these poems causes a strangely pleasant tempering of life’s chaotic pace. I honestly didn’t think any single poem was incredibly enrapturing, but this collection as a whole was a much-needed dose of clear remembrance amongst the modern fog of forgetfulness.

My personal favorites were probably “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” which is explicitly political (in the broadest sense of the term “political”) and “At a Country Funeral”.

[Annalise Kraines · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books of poetry I have ever encountered. I read this in an hour and I want to read it a million more times. I remember reading "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" my freshman year of college, but rereading it reminded me how rich it is and how filled with goodness and truth. Berry unflinchingly confronts death and grief and marries it to life and joy. This slim book of poetry is gorgeous and heartwrenching. I loved every line.

[maddie mccall · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In her sorrow she renews life, in her grief she prepares the return of joy.”

“But our memory of ourselves, hard earned, is one of the land's seeds, as a seed
is the memory of the life of its kind in its place, to pass on into life the knowledge of what has died. What we owe the future is not a new start, for we can only begin with what has happened. We owe the future the past, the long knowledge that is the potency of time to come.
That makes of a man's grave a rich furrow.”

[Ben Coyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong bucolic themes and imagery are pervasive in every single poem, presenting a beautiful collection that is worth digesting in one sitting for a thoughtful and moving experience. Favorites were- Her First Calf and all the Mad Farmer pieces

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cried.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great first dip into Wendell Berry's poetry. Loved it!

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

"And now/that the rising water has broken/the ice, I see that what I thought/was the light is part of the dark."

[Emily Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and warm and smells like earth

[Dan Gobble · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim volume contains an earthy wisdom won from hands shoved deep into native soil, carried by feet which have borne the poet deep into forests and over clods in furrowed field where roots were sank generations before he fell into the long line of succeeding generations which have lived their life out in place.
In these poems I find a rhythmic wisdom echoing the seasons, celebrating the renewal of springtime mud and green shoots of promise; the work and sweat of summer's labors; the longed for abundance of fall's harvest; and the much needed Sabbath rest of winter's freeze and thaw which recycles the preceding day's offerings into fodder for future life and growth.
The title suggests the bringing together into an agreed upon covenant arrangement, thus "A Country of Marriage," things that belong together, and which ought not be divorced from one another. Just as the seasons are dovetailed together, flowing seamlessly one into the next, so too are humans and the earth to be "married" together. For better or for worse, the way I treat my spouse will ultimately affect my own well being as well as the well being of the local community. So too, when we as human creatures become divorced from the rhythms of earth and soil, from the food sources which sustain us, from meaningful connections to our neighbors, then things, people, and places which ought to be "married" together are separated, often divorced from one another and in many cases are turned into commodities for pursuing our own narrow, selfish interests.
Berry's poems offer snapshots of what it means to live in a mutually beneficial, accountable relationship with other humans within a local community as well as within the ecosphere which involves all life, land, soil, water, air, etc. The well being of each part is something not only romantically desired, but is also necessary for the well-being of the whole. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, till death do us part.
One of my favorites from this collection is "The Wild Geese" (p. 22)
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, 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,
pas, 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.

[Mason Paas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Expanding my reading palette with poetry and the first foray did not disappoint. Lots of light and earth and community and family.

[Thomas Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wendell Berry is one of my favorite poets, and The Country of Marriage is one of my favorite books of poetry. Berry is not Shakespeare. His poetry is not filled with drama, thunder, and lightning. Rather, there is a common vein of gold that integrates with life as we really live it in his poems. The title poem, "The Country of Marriage," is, in some ways, as unadorned as a rusted bucket of flowers put out on the front porch facing a deeply flowing river. It reminds us that lifetime love has a soil that is as rich as the loam that produces a field of spectacular corn. The challenges and glories of that love are complex, alternating between we and I, but the strength it creates is as strong as a country, as the human in humanity. This is a spectacular book.

[Eric Overby · Rating 5 out of 5]

As in all of Wendell Berry's writings, this is one I go back to every year and have read countless times. There are deeply beautiful poems here, as in these lines from the title poem.

"Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don’t know what its limits are–
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?"

This alongside the Mad Farmer poems makes this another Berry favorite.

[Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's always interesting to revisit books that meant something to you once upon a time and see the differences in what resonates. The first time around I read this through the lense of grief after my mom died, this time I took away a lot about changing perspectives and commiting to living life in a way that actively defies capitalistic pressure that divorces us from the things that matter

[Alannah Irwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some are really good, some are not as memorable as Wendell Berry usually writes. One poem in particular is one of my favorites, so I'll write it out here so I can remember! It is just an excerpt from the middle of the poem.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
(...)
"When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest."

[Brian Wasserman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was all excited as having found a Wendell Berry book I had never heard of before. Now after reading more it, Im not terribly impressed.. yes there are some good poems. His best work in my opinion is Farming: A Handbook. This book should have had an objective critique, many times it seems like interjections of political ramblings wrapped up in pretentious phrases. Some of the poems are so rough, they shouldnt have been included or even they are too amateur. It is too easy to fall back references between light and darkness, the dichotomy is ubiquitous in poetry, so it can easily be a cliche. I want Wendell to move beyond discussions of light and darkness, the more uncommon metaphors are more appealing and demonstrate more to me that there is a great poetic craft at work. There concern by Berry for the Earth and its welfare is sincere but elocution fails to reach its mark.

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Berry is one of my favorite poets, and this is one of his most admired collections, but it is among my least favorite of his. Many of his treasured themes are there. He works in thoughts on becoming one with the grass upon death, which is a theme of previous poems, and he has an interesting reflection on older sons arriving at "brotherhood" with their fathers. Because Berry is as much an essayist as he is a poet, his various writings work together to portray him as our preeminent agricultural philosopher, and many of his themes of nature, farm life, and the sanctity of the family are present, but the poems of this collection, while pastoral and thoughtful, feel much less urgent than the preceding work. The themes are arrived at with less dexterity than some of Berry's other poems.

[James Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely little book of poetry by Berry, an author I've much enjoyed in the past. I read this (even though I probably should have rationed it!) all in one night and it was insightful, hilarious, emotional and even melancholy. I hesitate to know how I should talk about this one, but reading this calmed my soul and made me think of times and places that I've never seen...but I now know a little better through the outpouring of Berry's heart. A quality little poetry volume and well worth the read. (Also possible this will mean even more to me after marriage, as there were some poems in here that seem so deep and real on that subject yet I don't quite have the perspective to grasp as I ought...)

[Samuel Draper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lauren and I were gifted this short collection by Mrs. Peppers for our 1 year anniversary. My deepest thanks to her for this wonderful series of poems. My skills of reading poetry are certainly lacking, but many of the poems here were very accessible and clear. The way Berry sees the world is both beautiful and infectious. His language for nature is the clay that he molds into descriptions of everything from death and life to love and loss. I fear more and more that his project and worldview are a dying one, as he continues to lament the farmers and men of the land that seem to have been steadily dwindling already 50 years ago. The simplicity and mystery of his faith is inspiring and beckons me into a radically different comfort. I loved this work.

High recommendation to anyone.

[Demetrius Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. I'm getting to know Berry's perspective and voice pretty well. I'm not sure I take it hook, line, and sinker. I'm uneasy with the idea that death is as good as Berry makes it out to be. He seems to think death is some kind of reabsorption, where your body is reunited with it's native elements. Seems like I detect a hint of Platonism, mixed with a variant of transcendentalism. At any rate, and on a more basic level, I take Berry to be a prophet of contentment. And his poetry is not only beautiful, but deep, meaningful, and thought provoking.

[Leslie Boothe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful. Included below and excerpt from “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” that i really connected with.

“So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.”

[yk · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I will learn / the world. Full-feathered, I must fly to an unknown / place.

thinking about how my friend Pree once said that every poet writes from a central emotion, and that Mary Oliver’s was relief. about halfway through (at the poem “Planting Trees”) i said to Marcel that Berry felt like a masculine Oliver, which we sort of bounced back and forth on; now at the end of this collection i think it’s probably right to say that Berry’s central emotion follows relief, and is a bone-deep peace. this was very lovely to read on a winter night

[Miles Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beutiful and relativly early collection of poems from Berry. They're still agrarian poems, but they also contain the most viscerally erotic imagery in any of his poetry. It is not a carnal or voyeuristic poetry, but there is very much the sense of earthy familiarity and intimacy that pervades his ideals of sex and place. If you like Berry, you'll love these.

[Kit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feels like the right book for the times. I am spending my quarantine loving every second I get to spend outside (social distancing, of course) and hating the governments and corporations prioritizing capital over human lives. This collection, particularly the Mad Farmer poems, sum up that mood quite well.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a book sits unread on your shelf for years until the universe opens it up to you at just the right time. This was one such book for me. I absolutely loved this little book. Berry's mastery of poetic form and language is a wonder. I am, though, not at the right season of life to fully appreciate his poems on aging and consideration of death.

[Anna Garmoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

None of the poems in this collection were particularly enrapturing, but they were steadily reassuring to the reality of finding contentment in the surroundings we each enjoy in our various homes and landscapes. I’ve wanted to include more poetry into my repertoire of literary influence and this was the perfect starting point.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some real gems in this collection, but overall in comparison with Given there were more poems that were unnecessarily opaque, and some with the aspect's of Berry's philosophy I disagree with (in theological terms, a creation theology with no new creation, resurrection, or supernatural redemption).

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this collection.

“In us the land enacts its history.
When we stood it was beneath us, and was
the strength by which we held to it
and stood, the daylight over it
a mighty blessing we cannot bear for long.”
from “The Old Elm Tree by the River”

Sealey Challenge 10/31

[Laura Liana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of standout poems in this collection. The poems felt right as a whole, they all fit together well. The style of poetry is a welcome change from what I’ve been reading lately, which I like to call Twitter poetry.