“I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.” — Wendell Berry
April is national poetry month, so we here at LandCrazed (the blog) would like to pay tribute to one of the greatest poets/writers/activists to ever write about and advocate for rural land, farming and local/sustainable economies: Wendell Berry.
An acclaimed writer who forsook the literary life after stints at Stanford and New York University, Berry and his wife purchased land near his parents’ farm in Henry County, Kentucky in 1965 — a farm that grew to 125 acres and became the place Berry dedicated himself to working. He once said his ambition was to grow an old-growth forest of hardwoods — a task that would take 200 years. The point was to leave something behind whose fruits he would not witness. In other words, the world is supposed to have a future after each of us moves on …
Here is the link to Berry’s poem: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.
“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope. ” — Wendell Berry
1 Comment
May 14, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Berry is one of my favorites. Good to see him mentioned.