It is a horrible fact that we can read in the daily paper, without interrupting our breakfast, numerical reckonings of death and destruction that ought to break our hearts or scare us out of our wits.

Given: New Poems. Wind Publications 2005. 2004.

He is also an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers a recipient of The National Humanities Medal and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He is a prolific author of novels short stories poems and essays. Wendell Berry (born August 5 1934) is an American man of letters academic cultural and economic critic and farmer.