A Non-Personal Memory of Wendell Berry

I first saw the news Monday about the death of Wendell Berry rather obliquely. Two Facebook friends independently posted poems by him. I stared, realizing the coincidence meant only one thing. He’d died, aged 92. 

Some news events shock you, upending what you understand about the world. An assassination. The fall of the Berlin Wall. A terrorist attack like 9/11. Others reduce you to a sense of profound quiet. It was that second kind I experienced on reading those two poems. Neither post mentioned his death. They didn’t have to. I knew.

 

I don’t have a personal story about Wendell Berry. I know people who’ve gone to his lectures, and people who’ve made pilgrimages to his home in Kentucky. People who’ve met him. But I don’t have a personal story. What I have is a one-off story, which probably tells you more about agriculture, biotech agriculture, and the wars that raged over genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, for three decades. The story also tells you more about Berry’s impact and influence than many obituaries.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

The 2026 Society of Classical Poets International Poetry Competition and the International High School Poetry Competition. 

 

“The Elixir,” poem by George Herbert – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

After the Storm, Still I Float – poem by Riyanka Paul.

 

“The Blind Man and the Elephant,” poem by John Godfrey Saxe – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient & Modern. 

Some Wednesday Readings - Sept. 2, 2026

Wendell Berry’s Affections – Gary Houchens at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Wendell Berry (1934-2026) – Jeffrey Bilbro at Front Porch Republic.

 

The Witness of Wendell Berry – C. Christopher Smith at Cultivating Communities.

 

The Swap Not Heard ‘Round the World: Ordering the Declaration’s Grievances – Rpbert Parkinson at The Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Highdays & Holidays of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Your Guide to Dolly Parton’s Crime Movies – Olivia Rutigliano at CrimeReads. 

 

Photograph: Wendell Berry (1934-2026).

Poets and Poems: Jen Karetnick and "Organ Language"

A grandmother’s jewelry. A heavy rainfall. The fruit in a pina colada. A soccer game. Accompanying a parent to a medical procedure. Waiting for biopsy results. A can opener. Grief. Riding in the car with your sister. Gardening. A frog. Cicadas. Arthritis. The neighbor who calls you by the wrong name. 

What all these disparate things have in common is that they’re familiar. common, everyday. They’re so familiar that we often forget them or overlook them. 

 

In the hands of poet Jen Karetnick, however, the familiar and the common become something else. She reaches into her own childhood. She considers the experiences of her own children. She looks at the life she’s living now. The subjects are largely what we know as experiences common to all of us, but Karetnick shows us how the familiar will also indicate something deeper, something more profound. That’s the heart and soul of her new collection, Organ Language.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Night jar – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Planted – poem by L.L. Barkat at Every Day Poems.

 

“You, Andrw Marvell,” poem by Archibald MacLeish – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poetry Club Tea Date: The Pershing Hotel – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Do You Hear Birds? – poem by Elizabeth Wickland at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Some Monday Readings – Aug. 21, 2026

In Search of Northanger Abbey: Farleigh Hungerford Castle – Nancy Bilyeau at English Historical Fiction Authors. 

At the Zoo – Adam Smith at Ford Forum.

 

The Restless Odysseus in All of Us – Luke Sheahan at National Review.

 

Storytelling with Martin Shaw – Frank Mulder at Plough.

 

Why Is Nothing Original Anymore – E.J. Larow at After Progress.

 

The Man Called Ishi: Story of the Yahi’s Final Survivor – Brian Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Review: An Underappreciated Victory; Bernardo de Gálvez’s Mississippi River Campaign Against the British in 1779 by Stephen L. Kling, Jr. and Kristine L. Sjostrom – Phil Greenwalt at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

See 16 Stunning Images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards – Carlyn Kranking at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

“Consecration Day” – William Merriman at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Photograph: The existing buildings and part of the ruins of Farleigh Hungerford Castle, via English Heritage.

Salt

After Matthew 5:13-16 

Use salt to enhance

the taste, just enough;

too little and it doesn’t

work; too much, and it

ruins the food. Leave

it on the shelf too long,

not using it, and it’s

good only to be thrown out.

 

You are salt,

salt of the earth,

used when the time

is right, when

the seasoning is

needed, to bring

the full flavor

of the food.

 

Photograph by Pavel Neznanov via Unsplash. Used with permission. 

Some Sunday Readings

 

An Overlooked Argument for Christianity – Gavin Ortlund at The Gospel Coalition.

 

When Your Child Moves Out as an Unbeliever – Stephen Jones at Increase Our Faith.

 

The Church Is Not a Museum – poem by Theresa Burley at What Christians Want to Know.

Saturday Good Reads - August 29, 2026

This past Thursday was the 250^th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn. The army of George Washington lost the battle – and the American Revolution was nearly strangled right at the very beginning. What saved Washington’s army was a group of soldiers known as the Maryland 400.  

I own a Kindle, and I have a lot of books on it. I’ve also been paring back my library of physical books; some 400 have already made their way to a school library. But I do love holding a book in my hands while I read. Matthew Adams at Mining the Riches agrees, and he says some things are worth holding on to.

 

Have you ever wondered how people predicted the weather before we had Accu-Weather? Signs in the sky? Aching bones? Meteorology didn’t begin coming of age until the mid-nineteenth century, but people had been predicting the weather long before that. Becky Little at History takes a look at the various ways people used to figure out what was happening or going to happen with the weather.

 

Faith

 

The Best Argument for Christianity – Kelly Keller at Story Warren.

 

Christian Obedience in Two Words – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

Surprised by Silence – Matthew Rubenstein at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

America 250

 

The 21-Mile Circle: American Revolution Heritage Sites in the English Midlands – Steve Willis at Journal of the American Revolution. 

 

Negotiating American Independence and Thwarting the Newburgh Conspiracy – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Poetry

 

Forming the Affections of Our Children – Paul Kearney at Front Porch Republic.

 

Chaucer Announces His Desire to Retire – poem by Paul Freeman at Society of Classical Poets.

 

“Farewell to Juliet,” poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and “Don Juan,” (excerpt) by Lord Byron– Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Trap: A conspiracy theory – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Chesterton & the “Great Religious Genius” of Doctor Johnson – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

British Stuff

 

Relics at St. Paul’s From Before the Fire – Spitalfields Life.

 

The England I Knew Is Gone – Carl Trueman at First Things Magazine.

 

The Farmers’ Choir – Britain’s Got Talent

Painting: Woman Reading, oil on canvas by Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667).

The signal

After Isaiah 11:1-11 

The day of the reign

of the root, the branch,

is a signal for the peoples,

all the peoples, and

the nations come to ask,

to worship. 

 

The hand of the root,

the branch, extends

to the scattered

remnants, all

the remnants,

his chosen,

gathered together

from the east

and the west,

the north and

the south, a signal

of the reign,

a signal

to come home.

 

Photograph by Hugo Jehanne via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Morning Person,” poem by Vassar Miller – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven,” hymn by Henry Francis Lyte and John Goss – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Why I’m a Calvinist – Kyle Borg at Gentle Reformation.