A TIMBERED CHOIR: THE SABBATHS POEMS 1979-1997. (AUTOGRAPHED)

Berry, Wendell

ISBN 10: 1887178686 / ISBN 13: 9781887178686

Published by Counterpoint Press, Washington, D.C., 1998

About this Item

Autographed by Mr. Berry on the title page. First printing with "1" The dust jacket is protected by a Brodart mylar cover and is not price clipped. Not an ex-library copy. No remainder marks. No names or marks in the text. Most books shipped within 24 hours. All books mailed with Delivery Confirmation in a heavy cardboard box. Unread. Fine condition in fine dust jacket. Selling Used and Rare books on line since April 1998 and from our bookstore in the heart of the Bluegrass since 1984. ; 8vo.; 216 pages; Signed by Author.

Seller Inventory # 41741

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A TIMBERED CHOIR: THE SABBATHS POEMS 1979-1997. (AUTOGRAPHED)
• Publisher: Counterpoint Press, Washington, D.C.
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1887178686
• ISBN 13: 9781887178686
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition; First Printing.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

A collection of poems written outdoors on Sunday mornings over a span of more than two decades explores the beauty and spirituality of the natural world

Reviews

Berry has continued periodically to write poems out-of-doors on days of little other work. This book reprints Sabbaths (1987), a collection of that writing, adding to it about one and a half times as much new work. The tenor of these poems written--and, Berry says, best read--in silence and solitude has changed since 1987. Many are still meditative religious lyrics on death and transcendence, the holiness of creation, and submitting to nature's unalterable patterns, which, for Berry, include marriage and community. But lately, his patience tried, Berry protests the destructiveness of specifically American ways of farming and resource management, and one quite long poem describing the year's work on his farm is his graceful contribution to the ancient tradition of Hesiod's Works and Days and Virgil's Georgics. If his mood is more variable, though, his craftsmanship remains impeccable. Few other poets have such chaste and precise diction or manage line and stanza with such unaffected serenity. Ray Olson

Winner of the T.S. Eliot Award, Berry (A World Lost, LJ 10/15/96) spends Sunday mornings in walking meditation in the forests and fields around his Port Royal, KY, farm. During these walks he writes, and he has brought many of these poems together in the present volume. Berry has long been an articulate and passionate defender of the environment, and his "Sabbath poems," spanning 20 years, bring the reader close to the earth, the fields and flowers, richness of the soil, and diversity of the seasons: "Too late for frost, too early for flies,/ the air carries only birdsong, the long/ breath of wind in leaves." The poet has a marvelous ear for interior rhyme: "Horse and cow,/ plow and hoe, grass to graze/ and hay to mow have brought me/ here, and taught me where I am." These poems are not uniformly pastoral; Berry reflects, too, on war, technology, and the economy in these pages, but always with a heartfelt devotion first and foremost for the earth. A contemplative treasure; highly recommended.?Judy Clarence, California State Univ. Lib., Hayward
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