Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
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Table of Contents Wendell Berry
3
10 Commandments
5
In This World
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Are You Alright?
9
Apraise 12 Enriching the Earth
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The Silence
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Compromise, Hell!
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Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer
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List of Publications
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
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Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry lives and farms with his family in Henry County, Kentucky, and is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Among his novels (set in the fictional community of Port William Kentucky) are Nathan Coulter (1960), A Place on Earth (1967), and The Memory of Old Jack (1974); short story collections include The Wild Birds (1986), Remembering (1988), Fidelity (1993), and Watch With Me (1994); collections of essays include, among many others, A Continuous Harmony (1972), The Unsettling of America (1977), Recollected Essays (1981), and Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community (1993); and among his many volumes of poetry are A Part (1980), The Wheel (1982), Collected Poems (1985) and Entries (1984).
In a commencement address delivered in June 1989 at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, Berry gave some advice that to most modern graduates would sound old fashioned, indeed backward. But the advice he gave was timeless, and his reminder seems apocalyptic in view of the world’s current environmental crisis and, as Berry sees it, America’s cultural crisis. In a sense, Berry’s deliverance of such a critical message parallels Moses’ deliverance of the Ten Commandments, for Berry’s advice is also a prescription for cultural healing through the imposition of a set of laws. The laws Berry delivers, however, seem to be Nature’s laws.
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
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10 Commandments
Commandments I
Beware the justice of Nature.
II
Understand that there can be no successful human economy apart from Nature or in defiance of Nature.
III
Understand that no amount of education can overcome the innate limits of human intelligence and responsibility. We are not smart enough or conscious enough or alert enough to work responsibly on a gigantic scale.
IV
In making things always bigger and more centralized, we make them both more vulnerable in themselves and more dangerous to everything else. Learn, therefore, to prefer small-scale elegance and generosity to large-scale greed, crudity, and glamour.
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VI VII
VIII
IX
X
Make a home. Help to make a community. Be loyal to what you have made. Put the interest of the community first. Love your neighbors–not the neighbors you pick out, but the ones you have. Love this miraculous world that we did not make, that is a gift to us. As far as you are able make your lives dependent upon your local place, neighborhood, and household–which thrive by care and generosity–and independent of the industrial economy, which thrives by damage. Find work, if you can, that does no damage. Enjoy your work. Work well.
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
In This World The hill pasture, an open place among the trees, tilts into the valley. The clovers and tall grasses are in
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In This World
Along the foot of the hill dark floodwater moves down the river. The sun sets. Ahead of nightfall the birds sing. I have climbed up to water the horses and now sit and rest, high on the hillside, letting the day gather and pass. Below me cattle graze out across the wide fields of the bottomlands, slow and preoccupied as stars. In this world men are making plans, wearing themselves out, spending their lives, in order to kill each other.
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
8
Are You Alright?
Are You Alright? The spring work had started, and I needed a long night’s rest, or that was my opinion, and I was about to go to bed, but then the telephone rang. It was Elton. He had been getting ready for bed, too, I think, and it had occurred to him then that he was worried. “Andy, when did you see the Rowanberrys?” I knew what he had on his mind. The river was in flood. The backwater was over the bottoms, and Art and Mart would not be able to get out except by boat or on foot. “Not since the river came up.” “Well, neither have I. And their phone’s out. Mary, when did Mart call up here?”
We knew that Arthur and Martin Rowanberry required as little worrying about as anybody alive. But now, in venturing to worry about them, we had put them, so to speak, under the sign of mortality. They were, after all, the last of the Rowanberrys, and they were getting old. We were uneasy in being divided from them by the risen water and out of touch. It caused us to think of things that could happen. Elton said, “It’s not hard, you know, to think of things that could happen.” “Well,” I said, “do you think we’d better go see about them?” He laughed.
I heard Mary telling him, “Monday night,” and then, “It was Monday night,” Elton said to me. “I’ve tried to call every day since, and I can’t get anybody. That’s four days.” “Well, surely they’re all right.” “Well, that’s what Mary and I have been saying. Surely they are. They’ve been taking care of themselves a long time. But, then, you never know.” “The thing is, we don’t know.” We knew what we were doing, and both of us were a little embarrassed about it. The Rowanberry Place had carried that name since the first deeds were recorded in the log cabin that was the first courthouse at Hargrave. Rowanberrys had been taking care of themselves there for the better part of two hundred years. 9
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
A Praise His memories lived in the place like fingers locked in the rock ledges like roots. When he died and his influence entered the air I said, Let my mind be the earth of his thought, let his kindness go ahead of me. Though I do not escape the history barbed in my flesh, certain wise movements of his hands, the turns of his speech keep with me. His hope of peace keeps with me in harsh days, the shell of his breath dimming away three summers in the earth.
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Enriching the Earth
Enriching the Earth To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds of winter grains and of various legumes, their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth. I have stirred into the ground the offal and the decay of the growth of past seasons and so mended the earth and made its yield increase. All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth, not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness and a delight to the air, and my days do not wholly pass. It is the mind’s service, for when the will fails so do the hands and one lives at the expense of life. After death, willing or not, the body serves, entering the
And so what was heaviest and most mute is at last raised up into song.
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
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Wendell Berry Quote
H ow is
We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time:
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?
e n oug h
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
W h at a do
m
us t ma n
ho m e ho m e ho m e ho me t o be
at
ho m e i n t h e w orld?
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The Silence
The Silence There must be times when he is here as though absent, gone beyond words into the woven shadows of the grass and the flighty darknesses of leaves shaking in the wind, and beyond the sense of the weariness of engines and of his own heart, his wrongs grown old unforgiven. It must be with him as though his bones fade beyond thought into the shadows that grow out of the ground so that the furrow he opens in the earth opens in his bones, and he hears the silence of the tongues of the dead tribesmen buried here a thousand years ago. And then what presences will rise up before him, weeds bearing flowers, and the dry wind rain!
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
What songs
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he will hear! 19
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Compromise, Hell! Because as individuals or even as communities we cannot protect our- selves against these aggressions, we need our state and national governments to protect us. As the poor deserve as much justice from our courts as the rich, so the small farmer and the small merchant deserve the same economic justice, the same freedom in the market, as big farmers and chain stores. They should not suffer ruin merely because their rich competitors can afford (for a while) to undersell them. Furthermore, to permit the smaller enterprises always to be ruined by false advantages, either at home or in the global economy, is ultimately to destroy local, regional, and even national capabilities of producing vital supplies such as food and textiles. It is impossible to understand, let alone justify, a government’s willingness to allow the human sources of necessary goods to be destroyed by the “freedom” of this corporate anarchy. It is equally impossible to understand how a government can permit, and even subsidize, the destruction of the land or of the land’s productivity. Somehow we have lost or discarded any controlling sense of the interdependence of the Earth and the human capacity to use it well. The govern- mental obligation to protect these economic resources, inseparably human and natural, is the same as the obligation to protect us from hunger or from foreign invaders. In result, there is no difference between a domes- tic threat to the sources of our life and a foreign one.
It appears that we have fallen into the habit of compromising on issues that should not, and in fact cannot, be compromised. I have an idea that a large number of us, including even a large number of politicians, believe that it is wrong to destroy the Earth. But we have powerful political opponents who insist that an Earth-destroying economy is justified by freedom and profit. And so we compromise by agreeing to permit the destruction only of parts of the Earth, or to permit the Earth to be destroyed a little at a time-like the famous three-legged pig that was too well loved to be eaten all at once. The logic of this sort of compromising is clear, and it is clearly fatal. If we continue to be economically dependent on destroying parts of the Earth, then eventually we will destroy it all. So long a complaint accumulates a debt to hope, and I would like to end with hope. To do so I need only repeat something I said at the beginning: Our destructiveness has not been, and it is not, inevitable. People who use that excuse are morally incompetent, they are cowardly, and they are lazy. Humans don’t have to live by destroying the sources of their life. People can change; they can learn to do better. All of us, regardless of party, can be
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moved by love of our land to rise above the greed and contempt of our land’s exploiters. This of course leads to practical problems, and I will offer a short list of practical suggestions. We have got to learn better to respect ourselves and our dwelling places. We need to quit thinking of rural America as a colony. Too much of the economic history of our land has been that of the export oHuel, food, and raw materials that have been destructively and too cheaply produced. We must reaffirm the economic value of good stewardship and good work. For that we will need better accounting than we have had so far. We need to reconsider the idea of solving our economic problems by “bringing in industry.” Every state government appears to be scheming to lure in a large corporation from somewhere else by “tax incentives” and other squanderings of the people’s money. We ought to suspend that practice until we are sure that in every state we have made the most and the best of what is already there. We need to build the local economies of our com- munities and regions by adding value to local products and marketing them locally before we seek markets elsewhere. We need to confront honestly the issue of scale. Bigness has a charm and a drama that are seductive, especially to politicians and financiers; but big- ness promotes greed, indifference, and damage, and often bigness is not necessary. You may need a large corporation to run an airline or to manufacture cars, but 22
Compromise, Hell!C Compromise, Comp Compromise, H Comprom Compromise, Hell Compromis Comp Compromise, He Compromise, Compromise, Hel Comprom Compromise, He Comp C Compromise, Hell! Compromise, H Compromise, Comp Compr Compromise, He Com C CC Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Com Compromise Compromise, Hell Comprom Compromis CoC Compromise, He Comprom Co Compro Comp Comprom Com C Compro Comp Comp Compromise, Hel Compro Compromi Com Comprom Com Comprom Com Comp Compro C Comp Com Compro Compr Comprom Com Com Comp Comprom Com Co Compr Compro Co Compr Com Comprom C Comprom Compro Comprom C Comprom Compr Comp Compro Comp Com Compro Compro Compromi Comprom Compro Compr you don’t need a large corporation to raise a chicken Comp Com or a hog. You don’t need a large corporation to Compr Com Co process local food or local timber and market it locally. Compro Co And, finally, we need to give an absolute priority to Co Compr caring well for our land-for every bit of it. There should be no compromise with the destruction of the land or Compro of anything else that we cannot replace. We have been Compromi too tolerant of politicians who, entrusted with our country’s defense, become the agents of our country’s Com destroyers, compromising on its ruin. Comprom And so I will end this by quoting my fellow Kentuckian, C a great pat not and an indomitable foe of strip mining, the late Joe Begley of Blackey: Com Compro Compromi Com Comprom Comp Compromi C Compro C Compro Co C C
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promise, , Hell! Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell!Compromise, Compromise, Hell!Hell! Compromise, Hell! Hell! mise, Hell! Compromise, Compromise, Hell!Hell! Hell!Hell! Compromise, Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Compromise, Hell! Hell! l! se, Hell! promise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Compromise, Hell! ell! Compromise, Hell! , Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell!Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! ll! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, mise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! ell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! promise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Hell! Compromise, Compromise, Hell! Hell! Compromise, Hell! 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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
So long a complaint accumulates a debt to hope,
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and I would like to end with
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
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Compromise, Hell!
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
Prayers and Sayings of a Mad Farmer: I
It is presumptuous and irresponsible to pray for other people. A good man would pray only for himself–that he have as much good as he deserves, that he not receive more good or more evil than he deserves, that he bother nobody, that he not be bothered, that he want less. Praying thus for himself, he should prepare to live with the consequences.
II
At night make me one with the darkness. In the morning make me one with the light.
III
If a man finds it necessary to eat garbage, he should resist the temptation to call it a delicacy.
IV
Don’t pray for the rain to stop. Pray for good luck fishing when the river floods.
V
Don’t own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.
VI
Beware of the machinery of longevity. When a man’s life is over the decent thing is for him to die. The forest does not withhold itself from death. What it gives up it takes back.
VII
Put your hands into the mire. They will learn the kinship of the shaped and the unshapen the living and the dead.
VIII
When I rise up let me rise up joyful like a bird. When I fall let me fall without regret like a leaf.
IX
Sowing the seed, my hand is one with the earth. Wanting the seed to grow, my mind is one with the light. Hoeing the crop, my hands are one with the rain. Having cared for the plants, my mind is one with the air. Hungry and trusting, my mind is one with the earth. Eating the fruit, my body is one with the earth.
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Prayers and Sayings of a Mad Farmer
X
Let my marriage be brought to the ground. Let my love for this woman enrich the earth. What is its happiness but preparing its place? What is its monument but a rich field?
XI
By the excellence of his work the workman is a neighbor. By selling only what he would not despise to own the salesman is a neighbor. By selling what is good his character survives his market.
XII
Let me wake in the night and hear it raining and go back to sleep.
XIII
Don’t worry and fret about the crops. After you have done all you can for them, let them stand in the weather on their own. If the crop of anyone year was all, a man would have to cut his throat every time it hailed. But the real products of any year’s work are the farmer’s mind and the cropland itself. If he raises a good crop at the cost of belittling himself and diminishing the ground, he has gained nothing. He will have to begin over again the next spring, worse off than before. Let him receive the season’s increment into his mind. Let him work it into the soil. The finest growth that farmland can produce is a careful farmer. Make the human race a better head.
Make the world a better piece of ground.
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
List of Publications Fiction
Poetry
Fidelity: Five Stories, 1992
The Broken Ground, 1964
Hannah Coulter, 2004
Clearing, 1977
Jayber Crow, 2000
Collected Poems: 1951-1982, 1982
The Memory of Old Jack, 1974
The Country of Marriage, 1973
Nathan Coulter, 1960
Entries, 1994
A Place on Earth, 1967
Farming: A Hand Book, 1970
Remembering, 1988
Given: New Poems, 2005
That Distant Land: The Collected Stories, 2004
Openings, 1968
Watch with Me and Six Other Stories of the Yet-Remembered Ptolemy Proudfoot and His Wife, Miss Minnie, NĂŠe Quinch, 1994
A Part, 1980
The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership, 1986 A World Lost, 1996
Sabbaths: Poems, 1987 Sayings and Doings, 1975 The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1999 A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997, 1998 The Wheel, 1982
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A
Essays
Works Included
Another Turn of the Crank, 1996
A Praise, 1960
The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, 2002
Are You Alright?, 1973
Citizenship Papers, 2003
Enriching the Earth, 1984
A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural & Agricultural, 1972
In This World, 1984
The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural & Agricultural, 1981
The Silence, 1984
Compromise, Hell!, 2004
Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer, 2008
Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work, 1990 The Hidden Wound, 1970 Home Economics: Fourteen Essays, 1987 Life Is a Miracle, 2000 The Long-Legged House, 2004 Recollected Essays: 1965-1980, 1981 Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, 1992 Standing by Words, 1983 The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, 1971 The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, 1977 What Are People For?, 1990
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Nurture: Works of Wendell Berry
Book Design by Cynthia Rhee for Typography II Fall 2014 Typeface used Scala Sans and Baskerville
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