Front Porch Republic
Wendell Berry’s Moral Imagination
If we take care of this holy Creation, we will meet our human purpose. We will also take care of our families and our communities.
Of Herds and the Twoness of Things: A Day and Night Meditation on September 11, 2001
The herd: it is one of the things I most fear, not just from terrorists but from my fellow citizens, even from my friends and family.
Wendell Berry and a Good Death
“Death is a sort of lens, though I used to think of it as a wall or a shut door."
What Wendell Berry Saw
Berry slowly gets the point across to readers: each life only looks small when viewed from far away.
Wendell Berry and the Choice of Life
It would be hard to imagine the existence of Front Porch Republic without Wendell Berry. FPR is a project that does not compute.
News, Notes, & Podcasts
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Watch That Dark Lake Rise: Songs About Self-Destruction
Art about self-destruction always reminds me of Truffaut’s Dictum: “You can’t make an anti-war film,” since putting it on screen makes it glorious somehow. We’ll try to avoid that trap…
Must You Keep Rolling?: Songs About Rivers
We’re listening to songs about rivers this week—mostly American rivers, though we do make a brief detour into the Thames. Send your song suggestions to symposiumofsongs@gmail.com!
Remembering Wendell Berry
Patrick Deneen writes about how reading Berry led him to join with some others to found Front Porch Republic and to look for a job outside the Washington, DC area.
More Articles
A Voice for my Generation
Rare is the writer who changes a person’s mind; Berry is the kind of writer who changes what one pays attention to.
The Real Ideal
Wendell is that American thinker who, for me, represents the true wisdom of a sacred and infuriating intersection: the crossroads where Real and Ideal meet.
Wendell Berry (1934-2026)
"To the faithful," John Milton writes, "Death [is] the Gate of Life." Yesterday our friend Wendell Berry walked through this gate.
The Most Interesting People You’ve Never Heard Of
Upstaters is not a book for upstate New Yorkers only.
The Death of Whimsy
Let whimsy back into your life. When you do, you may find that joy comes along with it.
Artificial Idolatry: An Invitation to Not Worship
The arrival of new gods does not coincide with clear vision.
Dolly Parton: A Woman of Many Virtues
In our polarized times, people have recognized that somehow everyone seems to like Dolly Parton.
An Argument about Teaching, Technology, and Being a Tool-Using (and Tool-Consuming) Species
An education in the human arts and sciences involves a present, embodied, non-automated engagement with art, ideas, and the written word.
Forming the Affections of Our Children
Children laugh, after all, long before they understand or speak words.
A Statue of Icarus
Albert Camus once wrote: “We must imagine Sisyphus happy.” I would rather imagine Icarus landing.
From the Archive
Forsaking Success: Wendell Berry’s Return to Kentucky
As one Kentuckian wondered, why would he give up the “glitz and glamour” elsewhere to come back home to farm?
Severe Mercies and Magnanimous Despair
If students grew up moving from city to city, or if they hail from a soulless suburb, or if they are inevitably complicit in economic and social systems they deplore,…
Work and Prayer: The Brief Friendship of Thomas Merton and Wendell Berry
Berry wrote in one of his letters to Merton that “you are one of the few whose awareness of what I’m doing here would be of value to me.” He…
Tanya Berry’s Faithful Art
Women like Tanya bring artistry and honor to everything they touch: the homes they inhabit, the land they steward, the children they raise. These photographs are testimony to the clear,…
Live like a Tree
I am an unlikely localist. My life is a product of globalization. My mother’s side of the family is from Singapore, China, and India, linked to each other through the…
