New Collected Poems
*Starred Review* So eloquent and substantial are Berry’s fiction and essays that his poetry can seem ancillary. Read in chronology and near-completely in this volume, however, his verse shines out as the radiant heart of his prophetic art. He has been the foremost American poet of place, which for him means the Kentucky farming community in which he has lived and worked as farmer-writer in the tradition of Hesiod and Virgil, demonstrating the propriety and the virtue of living with the land and its creatures and arguing vehemently and cogently for the integrity of agriculture as the basis of human thriving. Berry’s poems initially show him discovering his understanding of the world and human livelihood and then how that understanding works out in the lives of his family and community members; that is, in farming as a calling, a tradition, and a passion. Yes, nature is often his subject, but death is his most frequent concern, which he probes and ponders until there is nothing fearsome left in it. As his poetic career progresses, cogitation decreases, storytelling increases, and, most lately, epigram burgeons with stinging and amusing effectiveness. Moreover, reading his poems is like drinking fresh springwater. --Ray Olson