Wendell E. Berry

Poet, Novelist, Essayist, Conservationist. Born in Kentucky, he lives, writes, and still farms there. Dealing with agrarian dignity and declaring the importance of community and of connection to the nurturing nature of the rural landscape, fiction and nonfiction establish an extended conversation about the life he values. According to him, the good life includes sustainable agriculture, healthy rural communities, healthy cities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life. The threats to such a life include industrial farming and the industrialization of life, ignorance, hubris, greed, violence against others and against the natural world, eroding topsoil, global economics, and environmental destruction. The concept of Solving for Pattern, coined by Berry in his essay of the same title, is the process of finding solutions that solve multiple problems, while minimizing the creation of new ones. Committed conservationist, he is an outspoken critic of industrialized farming and forestry and mountaintop removal coal mining. Honors include the National Humanities Medal (2010) and selection as the Jefferson Lecturer (2012).