This week in our poetry news round up we look at the death of the American poet, novelist and farmer Wendell Berry, and the return of one of the north of England’s most unusual poetry festivals.
Poet and Farmer Wendell Berry Dies Aged 92
Wendell Berry, the Kentucky writer whose poems, novels and essays made the case for small farms, local communities and a slower way of living, has died at the age of 92. He died on Monday 31st August at his home in Port Royal, Kentucky, his daughter Mary Berry confirming the news.
Berry was born in August 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky, the son of a lawyer who came from a long line of tobacco growers. He studied at the University of Kentucky, taking both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree there, before a fellowship took him to Stanford. A Guggenheim fellowship sent him to France and Italy in 1961, and by the age of 28 he was teaching English at New York University.
He did not stay. In the mid-1960s he returned home and settled at Lane’s Landing, a hillside farm on the Kentucky River in the county where his family had lived for seven generations. He farmed it for the rest of his life, ploughing behind Belgian draft horses and writing in pencil, without a computer, a television or a telephone in the house. His 1968 essay ‘A Native Hill’ set out the reasoning: the place had been his by accident, and he wanted it to be his by choice.
Over six decades he published more than fifty books. His first novel, Nathan Coulter, appeared in 1960, and the long sequence of Sabbath poems, written on Sunday walks around the farm, ran for more than thirty years. The 1977 essay collection The Unsettling of America remains his best-known work of argument, while ‘The Peace of Wild Things’, with its wood drake and its day-blind stars, is probably the poem most often pressed into other people’s hands. His honours included the National Humanities Medal, presented to him by President Barack Obama in 2011.
Tributes came this week from writers, farmers and Kentucky politicians alike, one describing his death as a great light going out. The actor Nick Offerman, who narrated several of Berry’s books, once said that he had found in him a chronicler of the nobility of honest work. Berry is survived by his wife Tanya, whom he married in 1957, and their family.
Morecambe Poetry Festival Returns This Month
Rather more cheerfully, the Morecambe Poetry Festival is back from 18th to 20th September, with events at the King’s Arms pub, the town’s Winter Gardens and various other venues around the resort.
The festival has built a reputation for putting grassroots spoken word alongside far bigger names, and this year’s line-up includes Dr John Cooper Clarke, Salena Godden, Henry Normal, Jackie Kay, Robin Ince, Elvis McGonagall, Luke Wright, Kate Fox, Patience Agbabi, Brian Bilston and Attila the Stockbroker. Opening night belongs to Cooper Clarke, supported by the award-winning local poet Trystan Lewis, who won the Plough poetry prize in 2024 and was longlisted for this year’s Forward prize.
Lewis credits the festival with getting him writing again after a long gap. “Every year it refills the tank with inspiration and enthusiasm,” he said, adding that it was a precious thing to see local poets given the same stage as some of the country’s biggest names.
That is very much the intention of festival organiser Matt Panesh, who runs workshops and stagecraft sessions at the Winter Gardens for the four winners of the local poetry slam before they perform. He also puts together an annual festival anthology; this year’s is the biggest yet, themed around entertainers and anniversaries to mark the centenary of the birth of Eric Morecambe.
Elsewhere on the programme there are poetry breakfasts on all three mornings, a free Word Walk, a workshop cheerfully titled ‘So you think you can’t write a poem, let us prove you wrong!’ at the library, late-night open mics, and a new pedal-powered ‘Poetry for the People’ stage at the Arndale. A free children’s programme is being led by the climate and literacy organisation Hot Poets with Carnforth poet laureate Bryan Griffin. Individual shows are £25 plus booking fee, with a full weekend pass at £65.
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