Sep 15, 2026
Author Spotlight: Wendell Berry — The Kentucky Farmer-Poet Who Taught America That Eating Is an Agricultural Act
A deep dive on Wendell Berry — the Kentucky farmer-poet who wrote more than fifty books in pencil by daylight and plowed his hillside with Belgian draft horses, the man who coined 'Eating is an agricultural act' and launched the modern movement for sustainable farming with The Unsettling of America; the author of the Port William novels and of 'Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,' who spent his long life defending small farms, local economies, and the care of the land, and was twice arrested for his convictions — once against a nuclear plant, once against mountaintop-removal coal mining; his defining reflections on the care of the Earth, the real work of not knowing, the watershed ethic, and being joyful though you have considered all the facts; and the legacy of the National Humanities Medal winner and 2012 Jefferson Lecturer who died at ninety-two on August 31, 2026, remembered by farmers, poets, and seekers alike.