The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry [Paperback]

Wendell Berry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999

This rich volume reflects the development of Berrys poetic sensibility.. The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry gathers one hundred poems written between 1957 and 1996. Chosen by the author, these pieces have been selected from each of nine previously published collections. The rich work in this volume reflects the development of Berrys poetic sensibility over four decades. Focusing on themes that have occupied his work for years--land and nature, family and community, tradition as the groundwork for life and culture-- The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry celebrates the broad range of this vital and transforming poet. In elegy, subversive call, song, or meditation, Wendell Berrys clear yet complex vision of what it means to be human is rare in American poetry. In these one hundred poems, drawn from nine previous collections, Berrys play of sound and syntax moves in our minds like something just remembered, and remains with us like an afterimage on the eye. He loves the pleasure of daily work outdoors, and his love of family and community is centered in a place on earth.As an activist and farmer, Berrys poems are balanced by reverence. With care and fidelity, Berrys recurring themes luminesce into examples of faith, fortitude, and action. In these scattershot days of spins and polls, E-mails and answering machines, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry is a contemplative and inspiring hymn to life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Air
Air And Fire
Anglo-saxon Protestant Heterosexual Men
The Apple Tree
At A Country Funeral
Below
The Blue Robe
Breaking
The Broken Ground
The Clear Days
The Cold Pane
Come Forth
The Country Of Marriage
Creation Myth
The Current
A Dance
Dark With Power
The Design Of A House
A Discipline
Do Not Be Ashamed
The Dream
Duality
Elegy
Enemies
Enriching The Earth
Epitaph
Except
The Fear Of Love
February 2, 1968
The First
For An Absence
For The Explainers
For The Hog Killing
From The Distance
The Gift Of Gravity
Grace
Grief
The Hidden Singer
History
Horses
In A Motel Parking Lot
In Rain
The Law That Marries All Things
The Lilies
The Mad Farmer Manifesto: The First Amendment
The Mad Farmer, Flying The Flag Of Rough Branch, Secedes From The
The Man Born To Farming
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
March Snow
Marriage
A Marriage Song
The Meadow
Meditation In The Spring Rain
A Meeting
October 10
Our Children, Coming Of Age
The Peace Of Wild Things
The Plan
A Praise
Prayer After Eating
The Record
Remembering My Father
Requiem; Owen Flood, January 13, 1920 - March 27, 1974
Ripening
The Slip
Song (3)
Song (4)
Song In A Year Of Catastrophe
The Springs
A Standing Ground
Stay Home
The Stones
The Storm
The Supplanting
The Sycamore
Testament
Thirty More Years
The Thought Of Something Else
Three Elegiac Poems; Harry Erdman Perry, 1861-1965: 2
Three Elegiac Poems; Harry Erdman Perry, 1881-1945: 3
Three Elegiac Poems; Harry Erdman Perry, 1881-1965: 1
Throwing Away The Mail
To A Siberian Woodsman (after Looking At Some Pictures In A Magazine)
To Know The Dark
To My Mother
To The Holy Spirit
To The Unseeable Animal
To What Listens
Traveling At Home
The Vacation
A Vision
The Want Of Peace
A Warning To My Readers
The Way Of Pain
We Who Prayed And Wept
The Wheel
The Wild
The Wild Geese
The Wild Rose
Window Poems: 1
Window Poems: 10
Window Poems: 11
Window Poems: 12
Window Poems: 13
Window Poems: 14
Window Poems: 15
Window Poems: 16
Window Poems: 17
Window Poems: 18
Window Poems: 19
Window Poems: 2
Window Poems: 20
Window Poems: 21
Window Poems: 22
Window Poems: 23
Window Poems: 24
Window Poems: 25
Window Poems: 26
Window Poems: 27
Window Poems: 3
Window Poems: 4
Window Poems: 5
Window Poems: 6
Window Poems: 7
Window Poems: 8
Window Poems: 9
The Winter Rain
The Wish To Be Generous
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About the Author

Wendell Berry lives and works with his wife, Tanya Berry, on their farm in Port Royal, Kentucky. An essayist, novelist, and poet, he is the author of more than thirty books. Berry has received numerous awards, including the T. S. Eliot Award, the John Hay Award, the Lyndhurst Prize, and the Aiken-Taylor Award for Poetry from The Sewanee Review.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; First Edition edition (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582430373
• ISBN-13: 978-1582430379
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poems "quiet in heart, and in eye clear.", September 3, 2001

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (Paperback)

"I am an amateur poet, working for the love of the work and to my own satisfaction--which are two of the conditions of 'self-employment,' as I understand it" (p. xvii-xviii), Wendell Berry writes in the Preface to his "Sabbath Poems," A TIMBERED CHOIR. "I belong to no school of poetry, but rather to my love of poems by other poets" (p. xviii). Berry is a Kentucky farmer, a poet, a novelist, and one of my favorite writers. By way of preface to this collection, he writes, "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,/ as 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."

Themes of earth, marriage, family, work and death weave the 100 poems of this worthwhile collection together. "Put your hands/ into the earth," Berry writes in "Song in a Year of Catastrophe." "Live close/ to the ground. Learn the darkness./ Gather round you all/ the things that you love, name/ their names, prepare/ to lose them. It will be/ as if all you know were turned/ around within your body" (p. 74). In "Marriage," Berry writes to his wife, Tanya: "How hard it is for me, who live/ in the excitement of women/ and have the desire for them/ in my mouth like salt. Yet/ you have taken me and quieted me./ You have been such a light to me/ that other women have been/ your shadows" (p. 31). "And we pray, not/ for a new earth or heaven," he writes in "The Wild Geese," but to be/ quiet in heart, and in eye/ clear. What we need is here" (p. 90). Enough said.

G. Merritt

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wendell Berry Poetry Sings Praise, January 5, 2005

By 

Meadow Glen Farm "Brian" (Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (Paperback)

Mr. Berry has written honest, real-life poetry for over 40 years. One who is unfamiliar with his work will find in these selections the essence of Berry's writing. His work is contemplative, meditative, spiritually centering, and genuine. His poems range from songs of praise for the Creation to elegies that rightly reflect death and grief. In between one sees
what can be good in communities, in families, in friendships, in marriage, and in earthly work. These selections will lead one to search out and read Berry's other beautiful books of poetry!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Four decades from Kentucky, September 27, 2000

By 

Gary Sprandel (Frankfort, Kentucky) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (Hardcover)

Spanning nearly four decades, Berry's poems are firmly attached to his hillside farm in Northern Kentucky, but with appeal to all regions. Berry writes of fidelity to the land, sustainable farming, community, and marriage. He writes reverently and with faith, but does not broach religion directly. His poems speak for a longer time frame, of waiting to find out more (about the land or a partner). On first reading you might think this is pastoral nostalgia, but is an exciting new view of community and stewardship.

The poems are very personal and Berry selects what to reveal. He writes about marriage, despite "the excitement of women and have desire for them in my mouth like salt". He writes of what he learned from his father "A steer should graze and thrive whenever he lowers his head". This is good poetry for those wanting to reflect on land and commitment.