Poetry

Profile: Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry (1934-2026) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist and farmer whose agrarian philosophy of “the care of the earth” placed sustained attention to …

There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration...and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, 'It is yet more difficult than you thought.'

There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, “It is yet more …

When despair for the world grows in me...I come into the peace of wild things.

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his …

I live my life in widening circles / that reach out across the world.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.

Stay together / learn the flowers / go light.

The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.

We bear the universe in our beings as the universe bears us in its being.

Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight

Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. / I do know how to pay attention.

Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it

Instructions for living a life: / Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?

The world offers itself to your imagination

The world offers itself to your imagination.

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

You do not have to be good...

You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves.

Please Call Me by My True Names

“Please call me by my true names, \ so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once, \ so I can see that my joy and pain are one.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

Profile: Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder (born 1930) is an American poet, Zen Buddhist practitioner, and ecological philosopher whose work integrates Beat poetry, Buddhism, and bioregionalism. His collection Turtle Island …

Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.

“Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.” — Robinson Jeffers

Humanity is the mold to break away from, the crust to break through, the coal to break into fire, / The atom to be split.

“Humanity is the mold to break away from, the crust to break through, the coal to break into fire, / The atom to be split.” — Robinson Jeffers

Hurt Hawks cannot be mended: the wild God has turned / His back on them.

“Hurt Hawks cannot be mended: the wild God has turned / His back on them.” — Robinson Jeffers

I believe that the universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy.

“I believe that the universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy.” — Robinson Jeffers

Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is / Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Love that, not man apart from that.

“Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is / Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Love that, not man apart from that.” — Robinson …

The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heart-breaking beauty / Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.

“The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heart-breaking beauty / Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.” — Robinson Jeffers

The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me / Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean.

“The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me / Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an …