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bcbartuska's review against another edition
3.0
This was my first Wendell Berry collection, and although I loved the fiction I read by him, I didn’t connect as well with his poetry. Does anyone have a recommendation for a different poetry collection I might like better?
mattshervheim's review against another edition
3.75
The poetry was good, but I think the essay "The Presence of Nature in the Natural World: A Long Conversation"—in which Berry traces a certain conception of nature from Alan of Lille's The Plaint of Nature through Chaucer, Spenser, Piers Plowman, Milton, Pope, and Wordsworth through to the present—is the real gem of the collection.
toniapeckover's review against another edition
4.0
I started this book with the essay at the back and then read the poetry and I'm glad I did because it makes Berry's poetry more explicit and meaningful. His essay, "The Presence of Nature in the Natural World: A Long Conversation" concerns our western understanding of Nature as first a kind of diety - or at least an active Personality - as illuminated by Chaucer, Spenser and Alan of Lille and later as a benign, general presence to which we escape from the "real" world. He explains how this change in understanding leads to the systems we have now that are concerned only with money making and lead to the destruction of our own homes and places. "I have no doubt at all that even if the global climate were getting better, our abuses of the land would still be the disaster most seriously threatening to the survival of humans and other creatures. Land abuse, I know, is pretty much a global phenomenon. But it is not happening in the whole world as climate change happens in the whole sky. It is happening, because it can happen, only locally, in small places, where the people who commit the abuses also live. And so my question has been, and continues to be, What can cause people to destroy the places where they live...? As always, in both the poetry and the essay, Berry is excellent, consistent and lucid.
alltheradreads's review against another edition
4.0
I just love everything I've ever read from Berry, and this collection of Sabbath poems is no different. It's more nature/agriculture/environment focused than some of his other collections, but powerful and beautiful and organic and rich nonetheless. I loved these poems and flagged many of them for future re-reads!
libraryofalexandria's review
4.0
A beautiful Kentucky read, with sharp poetry and thoughtful ruminations on nature and being and our Creator.
The long essay at the end was very interesting, but Berry focused solely on works by English authors on the relationship between humans and nature. There are so so many approaches to conservation, land-based subsistence practices, and local responses to climate change that I wish he would’ve brought another angle into the discussion.
Thanks to Lydia for the lovely and lively read!
The long essay at the end was very interesting, but Berry focused solely on works by English authors on the relationship between humans and nature. There are so so many approaches to conservation, land-based subsistence practices, and local responses to climate change that I wish he would’ve brought another angle into the discussion.
Thanks to Lydia for the lovely and lively read!
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