Courier-Journal
Written by James R. Carroll
WASHINGTON — Kentucky author Wendell Berry was honored at the White House Wednesday for his writings and conservation advocacy, receiving the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.
Berry, 76, a Port Royal novelist, essayist, poet, farmer and activist, shook hands with Obama, and the two whispered to one another briefly. The president then draped the red ribbon and medal around Berry’s neck.
“The author of more than 40 books, Mr. Berry has spent his career exploring our relationship with the land and community,” said the citation that was read aloud during the White House East Room ceremony, attended by Vice President Joe Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama and heads of federal arts agencies.
Berry said later that it was a memorable day.
“Not like any other one I’ve had,” he said in an interview. “To have my work honored is a satisfaction … because my work has been to so large an extent an effort to promote good care of the land. And, of course, I’m still actively in efforts to do that. I’m glad for whatever notice that effort can receive.”
He said the president whispered to him during the ceremony that he admired his poetry.
“I’ve never had a president say anything to me before,” Berry said, adding that Obama, in fact, was the first president he has met.
He said he had one more opportunity to talk briefly with Obama during a picture-taking session with the medal winners.
“I asked if he got paid extra,” Berry said. “He said this was better than some things he had to do. It was a kind of pleasure.”
He said he also thanked the First Lady for promoting gardening and better food and food production.
“I thank you for that (White House) garden,” he told her.
Berry is a well-known activist in his home state. Just last month, for example, he participated in a three-day protest in the state Capitol to protest strip mining practices.
For decades he has been opposing not only surface mining but also industrialized agriculture and poor land use.
In his 1977 book “The Unsettling of America,” he wrote: “It is wrong to think that bodily health is compatible with spiritual confusion or cultural disorder, or with polluted air and water or impoverished soil.”
Last year Berry pulled some of his personal papers from the University of Kentucky archives to protest the decision to name of the basketball players’ dorm Wildcat Coal Lodge.
He wrote at the time that UK had “solemnized an alliance with the coal industry.”
Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District, issued a statement praising Berry.
“Wendell Berry is one of our Commonwealth’s finest citizens, and with his achievements as a world-renowned author, poet, and passionate preservationist he is well-deserving of this prestigious recognition,” Yarmuth said.
Rep. Ben Chandler, D-6th District, said in a statement that “Berry is an institution in Kentucky. He is truly a man of great conviction and integrity. We are even more proud of Mr. Berry and his considerable achievements today.”
Berry was honored along with nine others who received National Humanities Medals: novelists Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates; historians Bernard Bailyn, Jacques Barzun and Gordon Wood; Library of America founding President Daniel Aaron; biographer and critic Arnold Rampersad; American Council of Learned Societies President Stanley Nider Katz; and Hispanic literature scholar Roberto Gonzales Echevarria.
Obama also presented the National Medal of Arts to nine individuals and one institution: singer James Taylor; classical pianist Van Cliburn; actress Meryl Streep; jazz great Sonny Rollins; musician and composer Quincy Jones; Harper Lee, author of “To Kill a Mockingbird”; poet Donald Hall; abstract expressionist artist Mark di Suvero; Robert Brustein, theater critic and founder of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theatre and Institute; and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.
“The fact is that works of art, literature, works of history … speak to our condition and they affirm our desire for something more and something better,” Obama said.
“Time and again, the tools of change, and of progress, of revolution, of ferment — they’re not just pickaxes and hammers and screens and software, but they’ve also been brushes and pens and cameras and guitars,” the president said.
He added: “We have to remember that our strength as a people runs deeper than our military might; it runs deeper than our GDP — it’s also about our values and our ideals that each generation is called to uphold, and that each artist helps us better understand.”
WENDELL BERRY
• Writer, farmer and activist
• Born in Henry County, Aug. 5, 1934
• Bachelor’s and master’s degrees, University of
Kentucky
• Among his many works are the collection of
essays, “The Unsettling of America” (1977); novels
“Hannah Coulter” (2005) and “Jayber Crow” (2001);
and poems “The Broken Ground” (1966) and “A
Timbered Choir” (1999)
