Booklist
The latter half, "Sabbaths 1998-2004," of Berry's first all-new collection since A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, 1979-1997 (1998) contains more of the meditational poems Berry conceives on Sundays alone in the woods on his farm. The other half's three parts contain, respectively, short poems of observation, hortatory poems varying in length from epigram to six-page public epistle, and a brief verse play. The observational poems show the most variety of tone and form and may please the broadest range of readers. The play reprises the notion of personalized community integrity at the heart of Berry's novel Jayber Crow (2000) and extends it beyond death. The intervening exhortations, collectively called "Further Words," reflect Berry-the-prophet, by turns angrily haranguing ("The Ongoing Holy War against Evil"), justly explaining himself ("Some Further Words"), naturally moralizing ("Lysimachia Nummularia"), earnestly preaching ("Original Sin"), and oracularly commanding ("The Future," which probably should be read at every public meeting in the U.S.). For those who believe that life and the world are gifts, this is an invaluable book. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
This rich and varied new collection is cause for celebration. For the past 25 years award-winning writer Wendell Berry has been at work on "The Sabbath Poems," resulting from his Sunday morning walks of meditation and observation. Poems from the past eight years of these walks are included in Given. Also featured is "Sonata at Payne Hollow," a play in verse that is a startling evocation of the lives of the painters Harlan and Anna Hubbard. The other half of this collection contains shorter occasional pieces, from political poems to folk sayings, love poems to celebrations. Given is Berry's first book of new poems in 10 years.
