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Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy
"In 1973, James Baker Hall photographed these scenes and events of a Kentucky tobacco harvest. We look at them now with a sort of wonder, and with some regret, realizing that while our work was going on, powerful forces were at play that would change the scene and make "history" of those lived days, which were enriched for us then by their resemblance to earlier days and to days that presumably were to follow."―Wendell Berry, from the book
An insightful meditation on the shifting nature of humans' relationships with the land and with each other, Berry's essay laments the economic, political, and societal changes that have forever altered Kentucky's rich agricultural traditions. Berry also adds a deeply personal perspective to Hall's eloquent visual testimony.
With a farm of his own nearby, Berry was a longtime friend and neighbor of the families shown in Hall's pictures and took part in their work swapping. In addition to detailing the repetitive, strenuous labor involved in harvesting a tobacco crop, he relates memories of stories told, laughs shared, meals savored, and brief moments of rest and refreshment well earned.
Hall's striking photographs illuminate the characters and events that Berry describes. During the 1973 harvest, he photographed the rows stretching toward the horizon while laborers cut a tobacco crop, one plant at a time, until the last row was cut, hauled, and housed in the barn. These photographs powerfully convey the physical experiences of a Kentucky tobacco the heat of the sun, the dirt, and the people hard at work.
James Baker Hall , former Kentucky Poet Laureate, is the author of many books, including The Total Light Process and Yates Paul, His Grand Fights, His Tootings .
Wendell Berry is a poet, a novelist, a farmer, a conservationist, and a former professor of English. His books include The Unsettling of Culture and Agriculture , Jayber Crow , Two More Stories of the Port William Membership , Life is a An Essay against Modern Superstition , and Harlan Life and Work .
An insightful meditation on the shifting nature of humans' relationships with the land and with each other, Berry's essay laments the economic, political, and societal changes that have forever altered Kentucky's rich agricultural traditions. Berry also adds a deeply personal perspective to Hall's eloquent visual testimony.
With a farm of his own nearby, Berry was a longtime friend and neighbor of the families shown in Hall's pictures and took part in their work swapping. In addition to detailing the repetitive, strenuous labor involved in harvesting a tobacco crop, he relates memories of stories told, laughs shared, meals savored, and brief moments of rest and refreshment well earned.
Hall's striking photographs illuminate the characters and events that Berry describes. During the 1973 harvest, he photographed the rows stretching toward the horizon while laborers cut a tobacco crop, one plant at a time, until the last row was cut, hauled, and housed in the barn. These photographs powerfully convey the physical experiences of a Kentucky tobacco the heat of the sun, the dirt, and the people hard at work.
James Baker Hall , former Kentucky Poet Laureate, is the author of many books, including The Total Light Process and Yates Paul, His Grand Fights, His Tootings .
Wendell Berry is a poet, a novelist, a farmer, a conservationist, and a former professor of English. His books include The Unsettling of Culture and Agriculture , Jayber Crow , Two More Stories of the Port William Membership , Life is a An Essay against Modern Superstition , and Harlan Life and Work .
88 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2004
28 people want to read
About the author
James Baker Hall
27 books6 followersJames Baker Hall was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1935. He was raised in a southern family of means and social standing, only to have a family scandal turn tragic when he was eight years old. This trauma, and its enduring consequence, would shape Hall’s life work as an artist, which began when he took up photography at age eleven.
Hall graduated from the University of Kentucky with a B.A. in English, having studied writing under Robert Hazel among his life-long literary colleagues: Wendell Berry, Ed McClanahan, Gurney Norman, and Bobbie Ann Mason. In 1960, he received a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and shared the historic workshops in which Leaving Cheyenne (Larry McMurtry) and One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey) were being written.[1] After his first novel, Yates Paul, His Grand Flights, His Tootings (also written in these same workshops) was published to critical acclaim, Hall returned to his roots in photography. During this time, he became the close colleague of such photographers as Minor White, Richard Benson, and Ralph Eugene Meatyard, was a contributing editor for Aperture, and lectured widely on photography in such places as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rhode Island School of Design, the Visual Studies Workshop, and the Minneapolis Museum of Art.[2]
In 1973, Hall came back to Lexington to teach at the University of Kentucky and, for the next thirty years, would act as director of the creative writing program. In 2003, he retired as professor emeritus, having vastly influenced the next generation of Kentucky writers. Notable students include: Maurice Manning, T. Crunk, and Patrick O’Keeffe.
Hall was prolific as both a writer and a visual artist, publishing widely in both arenas. In 2001, Hall was named the Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.[3] He was married to novelist Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, author of Come and Go, Molly Snow and At the Breakers. He died on June 25, 2009 in his home outside Sadieville, Kentucky.[4]
Hall graduated from the University of Kentucky with a B.A. in English, having studied writing under Robert Hazel among his life-long literary colleagues: Wendell Berry, Ed McClanahan, Gurney Norman, and Bobbie Ann Mason. In 1960, he received a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and shared the historic workshops in which Leaving Cheyenne (Larry McMurtry) and One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey) were being written.[1] After his first novel, Yates Paul, His Grand Flights, His Tootings (also written in these same workshops) was published to critical acclaim, Hall returned to his roots in photography. During this time, he became the close colleague of such photographers as Minor White, Richard Benson, and Ralph Eugene Meatyard, was a contributing editor for Aperture, and lectured widely on photography in such places as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rhode Island School of Design, the Visual Studies Workshop, and the Minneapolis Museum of Art.[2]
In 1973, Hall came back to Lexington to teach at the University of Kentucky and, for the next thirty years, would act as director of the creative writing program. In 2003, he retired as professor emeritus, having vastly influenced the next generation of Kentucky writers. Notable students include: Maurice Manning, T. Crunk, and Patrick O’Keeffe.
Hall was prolific as both a writer and a visual artist, publishing widely in both arenas. In 2001, Hall was named the Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.[3] He was married to novelist Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, author of Come and Go, Molly Snow and At the Breakers. He died on June 25, 2009 in his home outside Sadieville, Kentucky.[4]
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 20, 2025
This was my first exposure to Wendell Berry and James Baker Hall. I picked this up wanting to learn about the importance of tobacco to Kentuckians and I certainly got what I wanted and much more.
Berry's retelling of this harvest and of the countless hours of hard work and camaraderie he shared with his fellow farmers reveals what agribusiness has taken from us: community. While I've never done the backbreaking work of raising crops for sale, I have tended to a mountainside garden with my parents. I've also helped my grandmother with her garden by making pole bean arches out of chicken wire; the whole family would sit on someone's porch and string beans while talking away the task. We'd share what grew with others, be it family or friends. That communal spirit stirred with me when I read Berry's essay and I am very appreciative of the reminder.
Hall's photographs, while documenting the genuine work, reinforce this reminder with the harvesters shooting the breeze, focusing on the tasks at hand, and enjoying one another's company. Although some of the photography does not instill the same strength of pride for the agrarian character, the striking images of farming faces speak it plenty.
Berry's retelling of this harvest and of the countless hours of hard work and camaraderie he shared with his fellow farmers reveals what agribusiness has taken from us: community. While I've never done the backbreaking work of raising crops for sale, I have tended to a mountainside garden with my parents. I've also helped my grandmother with her garden by making pole bean arches out of chicken wire; the whole family would sit on someone's porch and string beans while talking away the task. We'd share what grew with others, be it family or friends. That communal spirit stirred with me when I read Berry's essay and I am very appreciative of the reminder.
Hall's photographs, while documenting the genuine work, reinforce this reminder with the harvesters shooting the breeze, focusing on the tasks at hand, and enjoying one another's company. Although some of the photography does not instill the same strength of pride for the agrarian character, the striking images of farming faces speak it plenty.
August 17, 2017
Wonderful tribute to what is now history, a book that shows the honor and complexity of doing what was right for its time and doing it well. The monuments to tobacco may now be extinguished (of course, the monument to Mr. Duke is still philanthropically standing), but the nobility of hard work and community continue to pay homage to a better time, when a man was a man for a'that. And women's work was, as usual, both man's and woman's work. The field and the kitchen--what a glory.
December 23, 2023
I've been meaning to read this for a while. Tobacco harvests are a common feature of Berry's fiction, and the pictures and essay helped me visualize them more. Berry's description of some of the individuals involved in the harvest that's portrayed here also bear some semblance to some of his characters. For those reasons I think it's a worthwhile read for those invested in Port William. I read the ebook on Perlego (and am probably glad it was just part of my subscription there).
January 31, 2023
This is a quick read because it is mostly pictures. If you are an avid Wendell Berry fan, these are pictures that would portray his writings. But, it is not much of a "read." It does contain an by Berry.
June 7, 2018
Excellent photos of a KY Burley tobacco harvest.
March 12, 2008
a treasure...especially for this granddaughter of tobacco farmers
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews