Week Four : introduction

Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry at his farm in Kentucky.

Wendell Berry

Born in Kentucky in 1934, Wendell Berry has had a home there most of his life. Completing bachelor's and masters degrees in English in 1957, he subsequently taught at several noted American universities.

The author of more than 40 works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, Wendell Berry has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours. He lives and works with his wife, Tanya Berry, on their farm in Port Royal, Kentucky.

Berry is a passionate environmentalist, preferring simplicity and opposing technological complexity invented for what seems to him to have little value.

Often on Sundays, Wendell Berry takes long 'Sabbath' walks in the forest. In his poetry, Berry uses the woods as a metaphor of rest and communion with God and the farm fields as the place of labour and the earth's fruitfulness.

More about Wendell Berry.


The photographs show scenes from Berry's farm and his native Kentucky. The music is selected from the work of the great contemporary Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt.



St Philip's Anglican Church, cnr Moorhouse and Macpherson Streets, O'Connor, ACT 2602
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