Wendell Berry, "The most important living writer in America"

brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,592
edited March 2018 in All Encompassing Trip
Today was set up day for my last book fare.  It's been fun but also a bit stressful for me and definitely hard on the body.  Sometimes the best wisdom is to know when to say, "enough".  I felt a great sadness setting up my last showing but not all was sorrow.   What really made it happen for me today was having Ken Sanders come by and take time to talk with me awhile.  Ken is very well known in the book world.  His store, Ken Sanders Books, has been around a long while and has been featured in at least one documentary that I know of. Ken was good friends with writer/activist/curmudgeon and all-around desert rat, Edward Abbey. 

We got to talking about Abbey when suddenly Ken noticed that I was featuring not only some Abbey books but also some works by Wendell Berry.  That quickly got his attention.  He told me he had met Berry and I so , "Oh great!  When was that?"  He said that actually, he has know Berry for quite some time and has spent time camping with him and hanging out with him and has called and written to him often.  I said that was great.  Ken recited a few bits of Berry's work for me and then got very serious and said to me very powerfully, "Wendell Berry is the most important American writer living today."  I nodded my head and told him that I had met Berry and was just amazed by the man's presence, humanity and humility.  I also mention that Berry's Unsettling of America; Culture and Agriculture is one of the greatest books I've ever read. Ken nodded his head in return.

The phrase "National Treasure" gets tossed around a lot these days but if ever there were such a thing, it would well fitting to refer to Wendell Berry as such.


“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.













Post edited by brianlux on

Comments

  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576
    Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet berries in a cup.
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,592
    rgambs said:
    Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet berries in a cup.
    Very Berry!
    “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
    Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.













  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576
    Wendell came into my life at the exact perfect time.
    Anyone who reads often has had that experience where a writer voices opinions, philosophy, ethics, or values that you hold dear but had never worked into fully formed and cogent ideas that you could articulate.  Sometimes writers express things that you didn't even realize were already important to you until you heard them articulated.
    My wife discovered Berry through his musings on the absurdity of our modern society and politics and brought him into our home, but it was his writing on food production and living with the land which sustains us that struck a deep chord within me.
    We had just moved out of the Columbus metro to a house in the boonies and I was very excited to keep expanding my efforts at producing food and appreciating the simplicity of a life lived in the woods.  I hadn't yet considered the deep subconscious reasons and motivation for this desire and suddenly, here's Wendell talking with supreme reverence about the merits of picking berries and performing what I now call the Sacred Ritual, which is putting my bare hands in the dirt and coaxing life into being to sustain myself and those I love.  It was a game changer for me, my brain now had the language to express what my deepest heart was shouting up at it all along.
    There's no way to put a value on that.
    It wasn't long after that I happened upon Lynn Rosetto Casper's NPR food program "The Splendid Table" and over time heard her and her guests talking reverently about the ancient and immensely important ritual of sharing food.  
    Together, they gave me a voice to express my deepest passion, which is producing and sharing food, and gave me the tools to understand why it was something I cared so much about.

    Thanks Wendell!
    Thanks Lynn!
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576
    There aren't many poems I treasure more dearly than this one.

    Manifesto: The Mad Farmer's Liberation Front

    Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
    vacation with pay. Want more
    of everything ready-made. Be afraid
    to know your neighbors and to die.
    And you will have a window in your head.
    Not even your future will be a mystery
    any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
    and shut away in a little drawer.
    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.
    Say that the leaves are harvested
    when they have rotted into the mold.
    Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

    Put your faith in the two inches of humus
    that will build under the trees
    every thousand years.
    Listen to carrion – put your ear
    close, and hear the faint chattering
    of the songs that are to come.
    Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
    Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
    though you have considered all the facts.
    So long as women do not go cheap
    for power, please women more than men.
    Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
    a woman satisfied to bear a child?
    Will this disturb the sleep
    of a woman near to giving birth?

    Go with your love to the fields.
    Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
    in her lap. Swear allegiance
    to what is nighest your thoughts.
    As soon as the generals and the politicos
    can predict the motions of your mind,
    lose it. Leave it as a sign
    to mark the false trail, the way
    you didn’t go. Be like the fox
    who makes more tracks than necessary,
    some in the wrong direction.
    Practice resurrection.

    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,592
    rgambs said:
    Wendell came into my life at the exact perfect time.
    Anyone who reads often has had that experience where a writer voices opinions, philosophy, ethics, or values that you hold dear but had never worked into fully formed and cogent ideas that you could articulate.  Sometimes writers express things that you didn't even realize were already important to you until you heard them articulated.
    My wife discovered Berry through his musings on the absurdity of our modern society and politics and brought him into our home, but it was his writing on food production and living with the land which sustains us that struck a deep chord within me.
    We had just moved out of the Columbus metro to a house in the boonies and I was very excited to keep expanding my efforts at producing food and appreciating the simplicity of a life lived in the woods.  I hadn't yet considered the deep subconscious reasons and motivation for this desire and suddenly, here's Wendell talking with supreme reverence about the merits of picking berries and performing what I now call the Sacred Ritual, which is putting my bare hands in the dirt and coaxing life into being to sustain myself and those I love.  It was a game changer for me, my brain now had the language to express what my deepest heart was shouting up at it all along.
    There's no way to put a value on that.
    It wasn't long after that I happened upon Lynn Rosetto Casper's NPR food program "The Splendid Table" and over time heard her and her guests talking reverently about the ancient and immensely important ritual of sharing food.  
    Together, they gave me a voice to express my deepest passion, which is producing and sharing food, and gave me the tools to understand why it was something I cared so much about.

    Thanks Wendell!
    Thanks Lynn!
    Awesome post, Gambs!
    “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
    Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.













Sign In or Register to comment.