Week Five : poems of Wendell Berry

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Wendell Berry, FAAAS.

Wendell Berry

Born in Kentucky in 1934, Wendell Berry has had a home there most of his life. Completing bachelor's and masters degrees in English in 1957, he subsequently taught at several noted American universities.

The author of more than 40 works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, Wendell Berry has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours. He lives and works with his wife, Tanya Berry, on their farm in Port Royal, Kentucky.

Berry is a passionate environmentalist, preferring simplicity and opposing technological complexity invented for what seems to him to have little value.

Often on Sundays, Wendell Berry takes long 'Sabbath' walks in the forest. In his poetry, Berry uses the woods as a metaphor of rest and communion with God and the farm fields as the place of labour and the earth's fruitfulness.


The flower paintings this week are from the twentieth century, including some somewhat abstract works.

The music comes from Eastern Europe, mainly in the Orthodox tradition.