The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982
"Wendell Berry's poetry is a validation of his decision nearly twenty years ago to give up the literary life in New York and seek a deeper bond with his ancestral home, a hillside farm in Henry County, Kentucky, on the Kentucky River. His straightforward search for a life connected to the soil, for marriage as a sacrament and family life, affirms a style that is resonant with the authentic . . . He can be said to have returned American poetry to a Wordsworthian clarity of purpose."--The New York Times Book Review"Berry is one of those rare individuals who speak to us always of responsibility, of the individual cultivation of an active and aware participation in the arts of life, be they those of composing a poem, preparing a hill for planting, raising a family, working for the good of oneself and one's neighbors, or loving."--The Bloomsbury Review"For all his earthiness, Mr. Berry is a sophisticated, philosophical poet in the line descending from Emerson and Thoreau . . . Ranging from the 'known' to the 'celestial,' from rich concreteness to prophetical intonations, Mr. Berry'sCollected Poemsestablishes him as a major poet of our time."--The Baltimore Sun"[Berry's poems] shine with the gentle wisdom of a craftsman who has thought deeply about the paradoxical strangeness and wonder of life."--The Christian Science Monitor