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by Wendell Berry

In these poems, Wendell Berry combines plainspoken elegance with deeply felt emotion―this is work of both remembrance and regeneration. Whether writing as son of a dying father or as father of a daughter about to be wed, Berry plumbs the complexities of conflict, grief, loss, and love. He celebrates life from the domestic to the eternal, finding in the everyday that which is everlasting.

Genres: Poetry, Christian, Nonfiction, Philosophy

90 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five stars for In Extremis, an homage to his father. Wrenchingly beautiful. The rest is more love poem than pastoral, though Berry never quite leaves the farm.

I finished this sitting outside, just before dawn broke. The reader is quite vulnerable to a personal emotive inventory. Be wary.

[Scott Kercheville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether reflecting on his daughter’s wedding, or his father’s old age, or the ignorance that leads our time to destroy everything in demand of better days, Berry’s poetry is thoughtful, simple, and beautiful. Profound but not pretentious.

[Olivia]

"how paltry was my worst, compared to your forgiveness of it"

[Nancy Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spring
A shower like a little song
Overtook him going home,
Wet his shoulders, and went on.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Often Wendell Berry writes poems that reflect his life on his Kentucky farm, as they reflect a life that has disappeared most elsewhere.

Berry is close to the land, both farmed and natural. His poems reflect that intimate knowledge and love.

Some of the poems in this collection, especially in Part 2, tell of his protest against the destruction of the natural world by manufactured poisons. These poems, published in 1994, have come to be. These poems are neither subtle nor beautiful.

Part 4 is an extended sequence of poems written about his father. For me, this was the heart and soul of the collection.

[Rick Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were a couple of ideological clunkers here, but overall the poetry was beautiful. My wife knew when I'd been reading the book by the sniffling and misty eyes. Wendell Berry is just great.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were many good poems in this collection and very few that I did not want to go back and read again, and again, and again.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet another Wendell Berry poetry collection has taken my heart. This collection was lovely to read and it was fun knowing that the poems are a bit older than the ones I have read by Berry in a while. He reflects much on nature, progress of the world, grief, respect for the land/earth, the process of growing old, and deep love, just to name a few. I specifically appreciated the poems he had about the relationship he had with his father, especially as he processes how he took care of his father at the end of his life. Berry's celebration of humanity is prevalent in those lines and this entire collection. I would recommend this collection to all!

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read Entries about 10 years ago. I like to return to it every now and then. There are some very fine poems in this collection. My favorite is The Blue Robe.

Wendell Berry, along with Donald Hall, and Hall's deceased wife Jane Kenyon, are three of my favorite poets. I list these three together because they all share a strong sense of place, community, and stewardship of the land and nature, but in a very grounded way, not flighty or "New Age-e."

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been challenging myself to enjoy poetry as a part of my regular reading rhythm. Delightfully surprised to find a book of Wendell Berry poetry at the library, I brought the book home to examine how the novelist adapted to the poetic form. This can only be described as phenomenal. I read excerpts to my husband and his response was, “Wow. Where did this guy come from?” Worth the time to track down and read.

[Colleen O'Neill Conlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was The Wild Rose that brought me to this collection, and yes, that poem is lovely. The last section is a series of poems about his father: "he was / my enemy...[and] by God / the truest teacher in my life." The last poem, "Come Forth," is a stunner.

[Dave Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wendell Berry's “Entries'' includes occasional pieces, political satire and sketches from the natural world. Echoes of Williams and Yeats reverberate, but, taken as a whole, the poems exude a common ethic, a respect for the land and its inhabitants. Overall, Berry speaks with conviction, an outspoken voice in and for the wilderness.

Yet Berry's lapidary observations can be quite precise:

`“Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
Where yesterday was only shade…”

The last section, “In Extremis: Poems about My Father” is a powerful meditation on love and aging. While not as moving as “Clearances,” Seamus Heany’s moving eight-sonnet set dedicated to his mother, Margaret, Berry's writing bears witness to his father's life and legacy:

“In flesh, denying time, will look
At what is lost, and grief fulfill
The budget of desire. Sometimes,
At home, he longs to be at home.''

A concise, interesting collection that is worthy of the reader’s attention.

[Lucas Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wendell Berry has been on my shelf and reading list for a long time. A couple collections of essays and Jayber Crow, but I've never read any until this brief collection of poems. I was immediately drawn to the spare language and direct tone. There is a poem near the end of the first section that makes frequent reference to Dr. Williams. That is a good guide to the tone and style. The cluster of political poems have an ache to them, the love poems are form the perspective of age and long lasting relationships, and the final section "In Extremsis" a series of short poems about the final weeks of the author's father were head and shoulder's above anything. One of the better statements of grief and parental love I've read. Maybe I haven't read a collection of poems in awhile, and what I have attempted has felt to opaque. This poem was striking and I am anxious to read more.

[Sanjuro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is broken into four sections. I found the first and third sections to be among the dullest of any of Berry's poems, and I've read nearly all of them. And yet, I found the second and fourth sections to be among Berry's very best, so that the summation is a strange collection of average and forgettable work standing alongside poems of soul stirring, emotionally beauty. The two wonderful sections could not be more different; section two is piercingly political, while section four is an extended elegy about his father. I might go so far as to say that this elegy to his father is the single best and most emotional sequence of poems in Berry's stellar career.

[Elise Schiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book of poetry that I’ve ever read. I’ve always been nervous to start reading poetry because I am afraid that I won’t be able to understand what’s being said. But Wendell Berry’s writing is so simple. Astounding, yet simple. Berry makes me long for a better world; even more than a better world, my true home, the Land flowing with milk and honey.

Life is beautiful, life is a miracle, life is short. This world is meant for dust. But I rest assured in the hope that a perfect world will come after.

[Sarah Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you provided a marriage feast
and the thankless guests crowded
at the table,gobbling the food
without tasting it, and shoving
one another away, so that some ate
too much and some ate nothing,
would you not be offended?

Or if, seated at your bountiful table,
your guests picked and finicked
over the food,eating only a little,
refusing the wine and the dessert
claiming that to fill their bellies
and rejoice would impair their souls,
would you not be offended?

[Grace Gallo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Extremis, poems about his father, wrecked me. I never thought I would voluntarily read poetry, but this was a delight. I love Berry’s honor for humanity, nature, and the divine.

Berry said it best in To Hayden Carruth:
Dear Hayden, when I read your book I was aching
in head, heart, and mind, and aching
with your aches added to my own, and yet for joy
I read on without stopping, made eager
by your true mastery, wit, sorrow, and joy…

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are such beautiful poems on love, the grace of connection, and loss.

Here is a favorite:

Epitaph

Having lived a long time,
He lives now in timelessness
Without sorrow, made perfect
By our never finished love,
By our compassion and forgiveness,
And by his happiness in receiving
These gifts we give. Here in time
We are added to one another forever.

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Put a lot of pencil in this book. Some favorites - Thirty More Years, The Wild Rose, The Blue Robe, The Reassurer, Let us Pledge, Anglo-saxon Protestant Heterosexual Men, Madness, Duality, In Extremis: Poems About my Father

[Jamie Brame · Rating 5 out of 5]

First book of Wendell Berry poems I've read. Especially great are the last ones about his father. Moving, deep, even sentimental (but not mushy). Loved these poems. Honest poems.

[Norman Styers · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best pieces are late in the book.

[Grason Poling · Rating 5 out of 5]

“‘Look. See that this is good,
And then you will not forget.’
I saw it as he said,
And I have not forgot.”

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially liked the poems toward the end about his father.

[Kaitlin Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving. Touching. Enlightening. Invigorating. Devastating. Consuming. And profound.

[Rye Thomasdatter]

This is not my favorite way to consume the Wendell Berry universe.

[Micah McCarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. There was a section at the end of poems he had written about his father that were devastatingly beautiful. I can't imagine watching a parent slowly deteriorate into confusion and sickness. I know that day will come. And I know that on that day I will return to these poems as a source for my own struggles and healing. Wendell Berry is simply my favorite author. Everything he writes connects with me on so many levels. The book is worth the price simply for this one poem entitled For and Absence:

When I cannot be with you
I will send my love (so much
is allowed to human lovers)
to watch over you in the dark-
a winged small presence
who never sleeps, however long
the night. Perhaps it cannot
protect or help, I do not know,
but it watches always, and so
you will sleep within my love
within the room within the dark.
And when, restless, you wake
and see the room palely lit
by that watching, you will think,
"It is only dawn," and go
quiet to sleep again.

[Jasonlylescampbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anglo-Saxon Protestent Heterosexual Men

Come, dear brothers,
let us cheerfully acknowledge
that we are the last hope of the world,
for we have no excuses,
nobody to blame but ourselves.
Who is going to sit at our feet
and listen while we bewail
our historical sufferings? Who
will ever believe that we also
have wept in the night
with repressed longing to become
our real selves? Who will
stand forth and proclaim
that we have virtues and talents
peculiar to our category? Nobody,
and that is good. For here we are
at last with our real selves
in the real world. Therefore,
let us quiet our hearts, my brothers,
and settle down for a change
to picking up after ourselves
and a few centuries of honest work.

I really like this one.

I also really liked the longer one about his father. In Extremis.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

It can be hard to rate poetry. I did enjoy reading these poems, they were accessible, but they didn't wow me.

A few poems were political in nature, some personal, and the last section: In Extremis: Poems about My Father was very personal. Yet the personal is relatable. It was a nice way to close the book.

This was the first I've read of Wendell Berry, although I've heard about him often. Will look for more of his works.

[Eric Overby · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, all of Wendell Berry's works are 5 stars so the rating system here is just how likely I am to reread it over and over. Having read Entries a couple years back, I read it again as if for the first time. It may now be my favorite of Wendell's poetry books. The Wild Rose has long been one of my favorite poems and each poem I read I wanted to mark as one to go back and read again.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning. From his love poems, to those against the American way of overindulgence and greed, to the poignant looks at his father, Berry is at the top of my list of American poets.

If you don't read a lot of poetry (or any) this would be a great start!

Simply,

Tim