Wendell Berry

[Mirabell]

his novels, starting with "Nathan Coulter" and ending with "Hannah Coulter" sound pretty awesome (just ordered "A Place on earth"), and on top of that he's an essayist and a poet. This 'un sounds as if he might be right up your lane, Liam, at least his prose does.

Here is the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry

and this is a poem of his

Kentucky River Junction

to Ken Kesey & Ken Babbs


Clumsy at first, fitting together
the years we have been apart,
and the ways.

But as the night
passed and the day came, the first
fine morning of April,

it came clear:
the world that has tried us
and showed us its joy

was our bond
when we said nothing.
And we allowed it to be

with us, the new green
shining.

*

Our lives, half gone,
stay full of laughter.

Free-hearted men
have the world for words.

Though we have been
apart, we have been together.

*

Trying to sleep, I cannot
take my mind away.
The bright day

shines in my head
like a coin
on the bed of a stream.

*

You left
your welcome.

[lionel]

A major Southern writer I've not read enough of - just a few novels - but he's still going, let's be thankful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMlvvZvXcPY

BLOG

[Mirabell]

and yet nother poem

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

[Bubba]

I'm curious, Mirabell, as to why you think Liam, of all people, would be drawn to Berry, who, though elegant in both prose and poetry, writes a lot about dirt farmers from Kentucky. See also his views on sex (best had in monogamous relationships between man and wife).

On another topic, I'm with Eric: it would be churlish to make fun of the mistakes the non-native speakers of English make on these boards when they post in conventional English, but when you attempt such colloquialisms as this 'un and yet nother you become a legitimate target of mockery. I will hold my fire for now, though I will point out that yet nother, unlike a whole 'nother, is slightly ridiculous and not even all that colloquial.

[Mirabell]

is slightly ridiculous

as it's meant to be. congratulations on your perspicaciousness.

Below, another Wendell Berry poem

Water

I was born in a drouth year. That summer
my mother waited in the house, enclosed
in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind,
for the men to come back in the evenings,
bringing water from a distant spring.
veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank.
And all my life I have dreaded the return
of that year, sure that it still is
somewhere, like a dead enemys soul.
Fear of dust in my mouth is always with me,
and I am the faithful husband of the rain,
I love the water of wells and springs
and the taste of roofs in the water of cisterns.
I am a dry man whose thirst is praise
of clouds, and whose mind is something of a cup.
My sweetness is to wake in the night
after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.

[Liam]

I'm curious, Mirabell, as to why you think Liam, of all people, would be drawn to Berry...

Well, he does know a thing or two about my tastes, , don't he?

Anyway, found this quote on Wiki:

According to Berry, the good life includes sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life. The threats Berry finds to this good life include: industrial farming and the industrialization of life, ignorance, hubris, greed, violence against others and against the natural world, the eroding topsoil in the United States, global economics, and environmental destruction.

Indeed, this might not be all that far removed from what I personally view as the "good life."