Wendell Berry*

Wendell Berry is an essayist, novelist and poet who lives on a farm in Henry County, Kentucky. He is known for his environmentalism, and his agrarian values. His most recent poetry collection, Another Day: Sabbath Poems 2013-2023 is a follow-up to his book This Day in which he had gathered all of his Sabbath Poems to date from 1979 to 2012. Berry’s Sabbaths, according to Southern Review of Books, are “poems mostly written on Sunday walks in the woods as a spiritual or reflective exercise.”

He celebrated his 91st birthday on August 5th, and has been married to his wife Tanya since 1957. He expresses his belief in Sabbath rest, saying, “the providence or the productivity of the living world, the most essential work, continues while we rest.” This reminds me of Christ’s parable in Mark 4:17 where “whether [the farmer] sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.”

Counterpoint Press suggests “With the publication of this new edition, it has become increasingly clear that the Sabbath Poems have become the very heart of Berry’s work.” I included five of Berry’s earlier Sabbath poems in the anthology The Turning Aside: The Kingdom Poets Book of Contemporary Christian Poetry, and see them as significant to the poetry of our times.

The following poem I suspect may have arisen from Berry’s meditations on Piero della Francesca's painting, "The Resurrection". It is from Another Day (Counterpoint, 2024).

Sabbaths 2020 VIII

Piero

A brushstroke,
another, another,
a day and a day,
and finally Christ
stands, risen
out of his grave,
as this witness
at last has seen.

*This is the fourth Kingdom Poets post about Wendell Berry: first post, second post, third post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.