Sabbaths [Hardcover]

Wendell Berry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1987

Wendell Berry's most formal poetic work to date is a sequence of traditional and classic meditations, spanning the years 1979 to 1985. Written in the solitude of his hillside study over seven years of Sabbaths, these are poems of deep spirituality, meshing the metaphysical and the natural worlds.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although these psalm-like verses were written on the Sabbath, they are also songs in praise of the six days of labor that precede it. A poet, novelist and essayist, Berry is first and foremost a small farmer who works his ancestral land in rural Kentucky. These poems reflect a utopian visionreminiscent of the religion of the Native American peoplethat relates human life to the cycles of the Earth. Organized by years rather than by specific titles, Berry's lyrical hymns follow the seasons of birth and death, growth and decay, over a seven-year period, from 1979 to 1986. According to this writer's system of values, death holds no real terror; instead, the danger that confronts humankind is our increasing alienation from the land. Berry is widely admired for his authenticity and his deep commitment to an ideal way of life. In effect, these verses, some of which borrow directly from the Bible, are meant to be read as prayers and meditations, both to instruct and to give sustenance to the weary: "Bewildered in our timely dwelling place,/ Where we arrive by work, we stay by grace."
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Berry's eight years (1979-1986) of Sunday meditations, these half-hymn, half-prayer poems fuse Thoreau's distaste for the "fume and shock and uproar/ of the internal combustion America," his idealistic spirituality and praise of daily work and trust, with a need for grace and natural creation. Berry's poetry is most persuasive when it locates a supernal design in specific detail:"Among/ High maple leaves a spider's wheel/ Shines, work of finest making made." Berrythe 20th-century American Wordsworthhere summons out of the still places of his Kentucky streams, gardens, fields and woodlands healing "fellow presences, independent, called/ out of nothing by no word of ours,/blessed." "Their life's a benefaction made." Frank Allen, Assoc. Dean, Continuing Education, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 98 pages
• Publisher: North Point Pr; First Edition edition (September 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865472890
• ISBN-13: 978-0865472891
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,172,963 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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