New Collected Poems by Wendell Berry
New Collected Poems by Wendell Berry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wendell Berry is one of the more under-rated poets of the last 50 years. His new collection of his best over that time demonstrates time and again his deep connection with the land, his profound but complex religious faith, and his lyrical ear. His poems can be read and appreciated by those who regularly read verse and those who seldom do.
That accessibility and his impatience with artifice in poetry or politics may suggest why some in the academic world ignore or disparage his writing.
The later collections are not as strong as those from 1994 and before. His elegies, especially the one for his grandfather, are haunting and universal. I highly recommend living with this collection for a while.
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