1975
The Memory of Old Jack wins the Friends of American Writers Award. A poetry pamphlet, Horses, published by Larkspur Press in Kentucky in April; another, To What Listens, published by Best Cellar Press. Poetry collection Sayings and Doings published by Gnomon Press in December.
1977
Serves as writer-in-residence for the winter quarter at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Poetry collection Clearing published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in March. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture published by Sierra Club Books in August and dedicated to Maurice Telleen, the editor of Draft Horse Journal. Donald Hall reviews both volumes for The New York Times, writing, “Berry is a prophet of our healing, a utopian poet-legislator like William Blake.” Resigns from the University of Kentucky to become contributing editor at Rodale Press, including its magazines Organic Gardening and The New Farm.
1978
With Tanya, buys first flock (six ewes and one buck) of Border Cheviot sheep, a Scottish breed, which they will raise for the next four decades. In November, debates Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz on the agricultural crisis at Manchester University, North Manchester, Indiana: “As I see it, the farmer standing in his field is not simply a component of a production machine. He stands where lots of cultural lines cross. The traditional farmer, that is the farmer who first fed himself off his farm and then fed other people, who farmed with his family, who passed the land on down to people who knew it and had the best reasons to take care of it—that farmer stood at the convergence of traditional values, our values: independence, thrift, stewardship, private property, political liberties, family, marriage, parenthood, neighborhood—values that decline as that farmer is replaced by a technologist whose only standard is efficiency.”
1979
On June 3, opposes and with eighty-nine others is arrested during nonviolent protests against the construction of the Marble Hill nuclear power plant on the Ohio River near Madison, Indiana. The company eventually abandons the effort to finish it. Poetry collection The Gift of Gravity published by Deerfield Press.
1980
Fired from Rodale Press: “I think this was because I was more for small farmers than I was for organic farmers. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever been a very good employee.” Ernest J. Gaines visits the Berrys in Kentucky. Begins working with editor Jack Shoemaker, who had left bookselling to cofound North Point Press in Berkeley, California, in 1979, with William Turnbull. (Most of Berry’s books will henceforward be published with Shoemaker.) Poetry collection A Part published in October. Joins with brother and other residents of Henry County along with the group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth in a successful effort to oppose the building of a hazardous chemical waste incinerator in the county. Publishes poetry pamphlet The Salad. On November 11, writes to Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute, after reading Jackson’s book, New Roots for Agriculture. Visits Jackson in December to write an article about The Land Institute for The New Farm magazine. The two begin a long correspondence and friendship.
1981
Recollected Essays: 1965–1980 published in August. Essay collection The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural, dedicated to Gene Logsdon, published in November. Both volumes are reviewed in The Washington Post by Larry Woiwode, who calls them “reference works of the body and soul.” Granddaughter Katie Jean Smith born, December 16.
1982
Poetry collection The Wheel published in October.
1983
Speaking at Oberlin College in February, meets David and Elsie Kline, an Amish couple from Holmes County who had read The Unsettling of America and came to hear him speak. Kline (with Meatyard, Telleen, and Jackson) is one of the only four agrarian friends Berry has from outside of Henry County for the next decade. Essay collection Standing by Words published in October, which The Christian Science Monitor review calls “nothing short of splendid.” Publishes substantially revised and shortened version of 1967 novel A Place on Earth in March; in a new introduction, writes that the original book was “clumsy, overwritten, wasteful.”
1985
Co-edits with Wes Jackson and Bruce Coleman Meeting the Expectations of the Land: Essays in Sustainable Agriculture and Stewardship, published by North Point in February; Berry’s contribution is the essay “Whose Head is the Farmer Using? Whose Head is Using the Farmer?” Granddaughter Virginia Dee Smith born, March 6. Collected Poems 1957–1982 published in May; The New York Times reviewer writes that Berry “can be said to have returned American poetry to a Wordsworthian clarity of purpose.” Publishes substantially revised version of Nathan Coulter in May. Helps found Community Farm Alliance, a group of Kentucky farmers, bankers, businessmen, and clergy members organized to help small farmers shift from tobacco to other products. Begins correspondence with writer John Haines.
1986
The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership published in March. Receives honorary doctorate from the University of Kentucky. In November, delivers lecture “Preserving Wildness” at the first Temenos Academy Conference in Devon, England.
1987
Returns to the English Department of the University of Kentucky, now teaching courses for “future teachers and farmers or anyone preparing to work in practical and comprehensive ways with young minds or with nature”; courses include “Composition for Teachers,” aimed at public school English teachers; “Readings in Agriculture,” which assigns Spenser, Milton, Shakespeare, Pope, and Wordsworth, as well as Sir Albert Howard, J. Russell Smith, Wes Jackson, and Gene Logsdon; and “The Pastoral.” Publishes Home Economics: Fourteen Essays in June; the Christian Science Monitor, in reviewing it, calls Berry “the prophetic American voice of our day.” Serves as writer-in-residence for the interim term at Bucknell University. Receives the American Academy of Arts and Letters Jean Stein Award and the Kentucky Governor’s Milner Award in the Arts. In the fall, “Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer” published in the New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly and reprinted in Harper’s ; the essay inspires many critical responses. Sabbaths: Poems published in September, the first of what will become a sustained project of poems on the themes of work and rest, fields and woods. The Landscape of Harmony: Two Essays on Wildness and Community, including the lecture “Preserving Wildness,” published by Five Seasons Press, United Kingdom, in September. Poetry collection Some Differences published by Confluence Press in December.
1988
Novel Remembering published in October and reviewed favorably in the Los Angeles Times.
1989
Receives Lannan Foundation Award for non-fiction. Poetry collection Traveling at Home published in November. Delivers the Blazer Lecture on the life and work of Kentucky artist and author Harlan Hubbard at the University of Kentucky.
1990
Granddaughter Tanya Christine Smith born, February 19. Essay collection What are People For?, dedicated to Gurney Norman, published in March; it includes the oft-repeated line, “Eating is an agricultural act.” (Berry later calls this quote as repeated without context, “an oversimplification he is now damned sorry to have written.”) Bill McKibben publishes a major profile of Berry in The New York Review of Books, writing that “wherever we live, however we do so, we desperately need a prophet of responsibility; and although the days of the prophets seem past to many of us, Berry may be the closest to one we have. But, fortunately, he is also a poet of responsibility. He makes one believe that the good life may not only be harder than we’re used to but sweeter as well.” Inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Berry’s Blazer lecture, Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work, published by University Press of Kentucky in November.
1991
Standing on Earth: Selected Essays published in the United Kingdom by Brian Keeble’s Golgonooza Press in April. Publishes poetry collection Sabbaths 1987 with Larkspur Press in October. Father dies, October 31. North Point Press closes, and Berry follows Shoemaker to Pantheon.
1992
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Receives the Victory of Spirit Ethics Award from the University of Louisville and the Louisville Community Foundation. From late August to late September, teaches a course at Schumacher College in South Devon, England, on “Nature as Teacher: The Lineage of Writings Which Link Culture and Agriculture”; writers assigned include Shakespeare, Sir Albert Howard, and Wes Jackson. On September 8, meets Charles, Prince of Wales. “It was a much easier meeting than I expected, for he is intelligent, considerate, and talks and listens well. He is an ally, is deeply concerned about what is happening to rural life and to civilization,” Berry wrote in a letter to Wes Jackson. Fidelity: Five Stories published in October to favorable reviews, including in The New York Times and The New Criterion.
1993
Granddaughter Emily Rose Berry born, May 2. Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community: Eight Essays published in October; The New York Times writes that the book “in its eight essays distills the author’s radically conservative views (in the good senses of both words).” Receives The Orion Society’s John Hay Award for nature writing. Quits his job at the University of Kentucky.
1994
Receives T. S. Eliot Award for creative writing from the Ingersoll Foundation. Poetry collection Entries published in May. Watch With Me and Six Other Stories of the Yet-Remembered Ptolemy Proudfoot and His Wife, Miss Minnie, Née Quinch published in August. Berry follows his editor to Counterpoint Press, which Shoemaker cofounds in Washington, D.C., with Frank H. Pearl.
1995
Grandson Marshall Amyx Berry born, June 22. In October, long poem The Farm (one of the Sabbath series) published by Larkspur Press and the essay collection Another Turn of the Crank published by Counterpoint.
1996
Co-authors Three on Community with Gary Snyder and Carole Koda, published by Limberlost Press in April. Receives the Harry M. Caudill Conservationist Award from the Cumberland Chapter of the Sierra Club. Novel A World Lost published in October.
1997
Mother dies, January 3. Father-in-law Clifford Amyx dies, July 30. Two More Stories of the Port William Membership published by Gnomon Press. Receives the Lyndhurst Prize for individuals making a significant contribution to the arts. Speaks at a benefit for The Garden Project in San Francisco, November 10.
1998
Gives keynote address, “In Distrust of Movements,” at the Northeast Organic Farming Association conference. A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997 published in April. The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry published in October.
1999
Receives the Thomas Merton Award from the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Social Justice in Pittsburgh. On November 10, joins Gary Snyder and Jack Shoemaker in reading and conversation at a Lannan Foundation event in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
2000
Wins Poets’ Prize for The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. In May publishes Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition; Bill McKibben, reviewing it for The Washington Monthly, writes, “it’s hard to imagine that the millennium has seen a more important book than this slim volume from our finest essayist.” Novel Jayber Crow published in September; The New York Times reviewer writes that “by the end this melancholy barber has won both our attention and our hearts.” In October, teaches one-week course at Schumacher College in England on “Community, Sustainability and Globalisation.”
2001
In response to the events following 9/11, writes “Thoughts in the Presence of Fear,” which is published on October 30 by The Land Report; in December it is joined by two other essays, “The Idea of a Local Economy” and “In Distrust of Movements,” and published by The Orion Society in paperback as In the Presence of Fear: Three Essays for a Changed World. Publishes Sonata at Payne Hollow: A Play with Larkspur Press.
2002
The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, edited and introduced by Norman Wirzba, published in April. Berry follows his editor to Shoemaker & Hoard, which Shoemaker cofounds with Trish Hoard.
2003
On February 9, essay “A Citizen’s Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States,” critical of the Bush administration’s post-9/11 strategy, published as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. Essay collection Citizenship Papers published in August. Citizen’s Dissent: Security, Morality, and Leadership in an Age of Terror: Essays, co-authored with David James Duncan, published by The Orion Society. Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cathedral Heritage Foundation in Louisville, Kentucky.
2004
That Distant Land: The Collected Stories published in February. Receives the Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award in Orlando in June, shared by David James Duncan, awarded by the American Library Association Intellectual Freedom Round Table, for Citizen’s Dissent. Mother-in-law Dee Rice Amyx dies, July 3. Awarded the Charity Randall Citation from the International Poetry Forum, as well as the Soil and Water Conservation Society Honor Award from the Kentucky Bluegrass Chapter for dedicated efforts toward the preservation of unique rural and cultural resources. Writes essay for Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy, to accompany photographs by James Baker Hall; published by University Press of Kentucky in September. Novel Hannah Coulter published in September. Poetry collection Sabbaths, 2002 published by Larkspur Press.
2005
Receives O. Henry Prize for short story “The Hurt Man.” Given: Poems published in May. Inducted into the University of Kentucky Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. Blessed are the Peacemakers: Christ’s Teachings about Love, Compassion & Forgiveness, selections of the gospels compiled and introduced by Berry, published in October. The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays published in October. Essay “Not a Vision of our Future, But of Ourselves,” about the earth’s destruction due to coal mining, included in Missing Mountains: We Went to the Mountaintop But It Wasn’t There, published by Wind Publications in October. Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the Conference on Christianity and Literature, December 29.
2006
In August, speaks at “One Thing to Do About Food: A Forum” with Alice Waters, Eric Schlosser, Marion Nestle, Peter Singer, and others. In October, gives the keynote address for the thirtieth anniversary of The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Novel Andy Catlett: Early Travels published in November.
2007
Visits Ernest J. Gaines in Louisiana. Shoemaker and Charlie Winton acquire both Counterpoint Press and Soft Skull Press; merges both with Shoemaker & Hoard to re-form Counterpoint.
2008
On February 14, at the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth’s annual I Love Mountains Day, delivers speech at the Kentucky state capitol in Frankfort calling for nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience to protest mountaintop removal in Kentucky. In May, awarded honorary doctorate by Duke University. The Mad Farmer Poems published by Counterpoint in November. Children’s book Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World published in December. Receives the Cynthia Pratt Laughlin Medal from the Garden Club of America.
2009
On January 4, publishes an op-ed in The New York Times with Wes Jackson, “A 50-Year Farm Bill,” calling for legislation that would address soil loss, pollution, fossil fuels, and the preservation of rural communities. On January 23, releases public statement against the death penalty through the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty: “As I am made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life before birth, I am also made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life after birth.” On March 2, joins protests in Washington, D.C., against mountaintop removal and burning of fossil fuels. On April 3, awarded the Fellowship of Southern Writers’ Cleanth Brooks Medal for Excellence in Southern Letters. Essay collection Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food with an introduction by Michael Pollan, published in August. Poetry collection Leavings published in October. In November, joins public letter signed by forty Kentucky writers to Kentucky governor and attorney general asking for a moratorium on the death penalty. On December 20, removes personal p
apers on loan to the University of Kentucky Archives as a result of the University’s too close relationship with the coal industry. (In August 2012, those papers will be donated to the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort.)
2010
Receives O. Henry Prize for short story “Stand By Me.” Essay collections Imagination in Place (including reflections on Wallace Stegner, Gurney Norman, Hayden Carruth, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, John Haines, James Still, Gary Snyder, and Kathleen Raine) published in January, and What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth, with a foreword by Herman E. Daly, published in May.
2011
In mid-February, joins nineteen other activists protesting mountaintop removal in eastern Kentucky by occupying the office of Governor Steve Beshear in Frankfort for a weekend. The governor agrees only to tour coal communities to see the damage. The Poetry of William Carlos Williams of Rutherford, a personal tribute to the poet, published in February and is reviewed in The New York Review of Books. On March 2, awarded National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama at the White House. On May 4, speaks at the Future of Food conference at Georgetown University: “the future of food is not distinguishable from the future of the land, which is indistinguishable, in turn, from the future of human care.” Daughter Mary Berry establishes The Berry Center in New Castle, Kentucky, to continue the work of Berry and his father and brother toward healthy and sustainable agriculture.