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. 

Singing to remember

After 2 Samuel 22 

I wrote a song, once,

a song of thanksgiving

and redemption, a song

I remember now. It is

a song of life,

a song of my life.

the song I wrote

to remember always

celebrates who

the author is,

the author of salvation,

the author of redemption

and rescue, the author

who takes me and

protects me in the cleft

of the rock, the author

who brings me to

the oasis in the desert,

the author who writes

my story. I sing

that song to remember.

 

Photograph by Vitalii Khodzinskyi via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Spiritual Discipline of Unlearning – David Prince at Prince on Preaching.

 

Holy Humor – Joshua Budimlic at Iotas in Eternity.

The Poetry of Luci Shaw

Poet Luci Shaw died last week, age 96. She would have turned 97 on Dec. 29. The news prompted an outpouring of memories, comments, shared experiences, and posts about how important she’d been in the lives of so many poets and writers. 

I never met Luci, and yet it seems like she was an old friend. I never thought of her as a mentor, and yet she influenced my own writing. 

 

I knew Luci Shaw by reading her poetry. And I read her poetry because I visited a place that knew her and that she knew.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

“You cannot extinguish,” poem by Emily Dickinson – Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

 

When the Wind Flows – poem by David Whyte.

 

“A Hymn of Heavenly Love” by Edmund Spencer – Malcolm Guite.

 

“Barnfloor and Winepress,” poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“Poem to Fit a Matchbox” by Luci Shaw – Every Day Poems.

Some Readings for Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend is upon us. While it's customary to enjoy a holiday, a barbecue, a get-together with friends, neighbors, or family, it's also important to remember why we recognize this day: to remember the people who died for our country and us. 

The idea of national cemeteries started during the Civil War, still the most murderous war America has ever been involved in. Emerging Civil War has been posting short articles about some of the cemeteries associated with the war, and I've added Gettysburg.

Memorial Day and National Cemeteries – Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Civil War.

 

Shiloh National Cemetery – Gregory Metz at Emerging Civil War.

 

Winchester National Cemetery – Jon Tracey at Emerging Civil War.

 

City Point National Cemetery – Tim Talbott at Emerging Civil War.

 

Fredericksburg National Cemetery – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

Culpepper National Cemetery – Emerging Civil War.

 

The Gettysburg Address – Abraham Lincoln Online.

 

Gettysburg National Cemetery – American Battlefield Trust.

Santa Fe's Easily Forgotten Ties to the Civil War - Patrick Kelly-Fischer at Emerging Civil War.

Contrasting National and Local Cemeteries at Camp Parapet in New Orleans - Neil Chatelain at Emerging Civil War. 

Stones River National Cemetery - Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Civil War.

Glendale National Cemetery - Doug Crenshaw at Emerging Civil War.

Gettysburg National Cemetery - Brian Swartz at Emerging Civil War.

Chalmette National Cemetery and Nashville National Cemetery - Sean Michael Chick at Emerging Civil War.

New Bern National Cemetery - Tim Talbot at Emerging Civil War.

Andersonville National Cemetery - Derek Mayfield at Emerging Civil War.

 

Photograph: Gettysburg National Military Park by Danaisa Rodriguez via Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

What they do after

After Luke 24:28-35

After the bread is taken,

after the bread is blessed

and broken,

after the bread is given,

after the bread forces

the remembrance,

after the vanishing,

after they sit stunned,

they remember the journey.

They remember hearts

burning as they talked

and listened, kindled

by the stranger,

they remember the word

opened as he talked,

and they know,

suddenly, abruptly.

In the darkness they rise

and return, to find

the followers, to tell]

the followers the story

of the road, the story

of the remembering

and the vanishing,

the story of the breaking

of the bread.

Photograph by Raychan via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Stranger on the road

After Luke 24:28-35

They meet a stranger

on the road, and they

talk, walk together

to the village 

in the west. They talk

of what had happened,

momentous things,

surprising the stranger

with intensity, conviction,

as they tell their story

incomplete in the fading light

and growing shadows 

of the dying day. He moves

to leave them, but he stays.

They eat, and the stranger,

in a strange communion,

takes the bread,

blesses the bread,

breaks the bread,

gives the bread. 

The bread is an act

of remembrance,

opening their eyes

in time to see

the stranger vanish.

September

He sits, stares at a single painting 

in the afternoon, rather abstract,

neo-abstract, perhaps neo-realist 

or post something, he doesn’t know

but it doesn’t matter, the painting

and its moment, the painting

in its moment is what matters

to him, speaks to him, he doesn’t

understand why but he’s beyond 

understanding, beyond veneration,

having arrived at veneration,

the painting is an icon, he thinks, 

the painting should be carried

properly by priests in cassocks

and belts of rope, priests

with long beards, as they carry

the icon flanked by acolytes

with candles down the steps

to Fifth Avenue and turn south. 

Painting: September, oil on canvas by Gerhard Richter (2005), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This poem is a repost from Sept. 11, 2014.

Poetry and Remembering the Civil War – Part 1: Allen Tate

I’ve been reading about the Civil War; it’s research for a writing project. If you grew up in the South, like I did in the 1950s and 1960s, the Civil War was still being fought, through the stories told by my father and grandmother, and through the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. I could listen to family and watch news reports of protests, counter-protests, police brutality, and governors trying to prevent integration of state universities. 

A great-great uncle died at the Battle of Shilohin 1862; another died in a battle in Texas. But it was my great-grandfather who carried the main family story, because he survived to tell what happened.

Too young to enlist, he served as a messenger boy, part of a Mississippi unit that fought with General Joseph Johnston, the general who surrendered in North Carolina a few weeks after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. He had to make his way home to southern Mississippi on foot, and it took months across a devastated region. When he arrived, he found his family gone. His odyssey continued across Louisiana to East Texas, where he finally found them.

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

Top photograph: Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio.