The country of marriage / Wendell Berry.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781619021082
- ISBN: 1619021080
- Physical Description: 51 pages ; 20 cm
- Publisher: Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2013.
- Copyright: ©1973
Content descriptions
Formatted Contents Note: | The old elm tree by the river -- Poem -- Breaking -- The country of marriage -- Zero -- Prayer after eating -- Her first calf -- Kentucky River junction -- Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front -- A marriage, an elegy -- The Arrival -- A song sparrow singing in the fall -- The Mad Farmer Manifesto: The First Amendment -- Planting trees -- The wild geese -- The silence -- Anger against beasts -- At a country funeral -- The recognition -- Planting crocuses -- Praise -- The gathering -- A homecoming -- Leaving home -- The Mad Farmer's love song -- The strangers -- The cruel plumage -- Testament -- The clear days -- To William Butler Yeats -- Song -- The asparagus bed -- Poem for J. -- Inland passages -- An anniversary. |
Summary, etc.: | Each of the thirty-five poems in this collection is concerned with our relationship to nature, to all of humanity, and, ultimately, to God and the powers of creation. The farmer and his land, marriage and the family, form the central images. The long title poem, perhaps the finest single work in the book, is a grave, moving, and beautifully wrought love poem. The shorter lyrics have an equal beauty and perfection of phrase. And there is humor, too, notably in several new poems about the "Mad Farmer," who first made his appearance in Farming: A Hand Book, and who advises us here to "every day do something that won't compute."-- Harcourt, Brace and Company / Harvest Books. |
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Subject: | American poetry. Christian poetry, American. |
Genre: | American poetry. Christian poetry, American. |
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Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at GRPL.

Author Notes
A Country of Marriage : Poems
Wendell Berry The prolific poet, novelist, and essayist Wendell Berry is a fifth-generation native of north central Kentucky. Berry taught at Stanford University; traveled to Italy and France on a Guggenheim Fellowship; and taught at New York University and the University of Kentucky, Lexington, before moving to Henry County. Berry owns and operates Lanes Landing Farm, a small, hilly piece of property on the Kentucky River. He embraced full-time farming as a career, using horses and organic methods to tend the land. Harmony with nature in general, and the farming tradition in particular, is a central theme of Berry's diverse work. As a poet, Berry gained popularity within the literary community. Collected Poems, 1957-1982, was particularly well-received. Novels and short stories set in Port William, a fictional town paralleling his real-life home town of Port Royal further established his literary reputation. The Memory of Old Jack, Berry's third novel, received Chicago's Friends of American Writers Award for 1975. Berry reached his broadest audience and attained his greatest popular acclaim through his essays. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture is a springboard for contemporary environmental concerns. In his life as well as his art, Berry has advocated a responsible, contextual relationship with individuals in a local, agrarian economy. (Bowker Author Biography)