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Poetry Title Index | Poetry First Line Index |
PLEASE NOTEAn improved version of this Wendell Berry resource Please adjust your links, if you are so inclined. This present site will remain online, but it will no longer be updated. |
This
website is not
owned, operated or sanctioned by Mr. Berry,
whose disapproval of computer technology is well-documented.
may be especially useful for readers who are new to Mr. Berry's
work.|
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at Powell's To be published by Counterpoint in September 2008. During the otherwise quiet course of his life as a poet, Wendell Berry has become mad at what contemporary society has made of its land, its communities, and its past. This anger reaches its peak in the poems of the Mad Farmer, an open-ended sequence he's found himself impelled to continue against his better instincts. These poems can take the shape of manifestos, meditations, insults, Whitmanic fits and ravings--and are often funny in spite of themselves. The Mad Farmer is a character as necessary, perhaps, as he is regrettable. Here are gathered the individual poems from Berry's various collections to offer the teachings and bitcheries of this amazing American voice. After the great success of the lovely Window Poems, Bob Baris of the Press on Scroll Road returns to design and produce an edition illustrated with etchings by Abigail Rover. Ed McClanahan offers an introduction wherein he clears up the inspiration behind the Mad Farmer himself. McClanahan also manages to take more credit than he is clearly due. Then Berry weighs in with an apology--and characteristic exaggeration. James Baker Hall and William Kloefkorn offer poems here that also show how the Mad Farmer has escaped into the work of others. The whole is a wonderful testimony to the power of anger and humor to bring even the most terrible consequences into a focus otherwise impossible to obtain. Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World To be published by Counterpoint with illustrations by Davis Te Selle on January 1, 2009, this single story was originally published in Orion magazine. Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader's Guide By Matthew J. Bonzo and Michael R. Stevens. Wendell Berry's poetry, fiction, and essays persistently ask the question: How can we live meaningful lives in a consumer-driven, fragmented age? His honest search for health in the midst of disease has garnered attention and discussion in both conservative and progressive circles. Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life thoroughly examines Berry's main themes of community, place, and conservation. It offers an apology for the power of Berry's vision and the ways in which his account of the world resonates with the biblical narrative. Pastors, students, professors, and laity will discover in this book how to flesh out Berry's worldview and foster a culture of life in their neighborhoods, churches, and schools. |
