This poetry collection, selected by the poet himself, includes works from "The Broken Ground," "Findings," "Openings," "Farming: A Handbook," "The Country Marriage," "Clearing," "A Part," and "The Wheel"
Berry's themes are reflections of his life: friends, family, the farm, the nature around us as well as within. He speaks strongly for himself and sometimes for the lost heart of the country. As he has borne witness to the world for eight decades, what he offers us now in this new collection of poems is of incomparable value.
This rich volume reflects the development of Berry's poetic sensibility. ''the Selected Poems of Wendell Berry makes available cartloads and heaps of clear and fluent work from Berry's fourteen books of poetry and four decades of writing, closely documenting the inner and the visible lives Berry sees and feels in agriculture and in nature.''
Now available. Here are the early poems which first brought Denise Levertov's work to prominence -- from early uncollected poems, selections from The Double Image (London, 1946), and her three books Here and Now (1957), Overland to the Islands (1958) and With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads (1960), which established her as one of the more lyrical and most influential poets of the New American poetry.
In 1995, Wendell Berry’s Roots to the Earth was published in portfolio form by West Meadow Press. The wood etchings of celebrated artist and wood engraver, Wesley Bates, were printed from the original wood blocks on handmade Japanese paper. In 2014, this work was reprinted at Larkspur Press, along with additional poems. It is now with great pleasure that Counterpoint reproduces this collaborative work for trade publication, as well as expanding it with the inclusion of a short story, “The Branch Way of Doing,” and additional engravings by Bates. In his introduction to the 2014 collection, Bates wrote: "As our society moves toward urbanization, the majority of the population views agriculture from an increasingly detached position. . . In his poetry [Berry] reveals tenderness and love as well as anger and uncertainty. . . The wood engravings in this collection are intended to be companion pieces to. . . the way he expresses what it is to be a farmer."
"With the [publication of this book], an ever-wider audience may more fully appreciate the ... range of the poet's technique, the scope of his concerns, and the humaneness of his vision"--Back cover.