Sep 10, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min · 11 segments
Wendell Berry spent more than half a century challenging Americans to reconsider our relationship with the land, our food, our communities, and one another. The celebrated author, poet, farmer, and…
Wendell BerryGuestDan ImhoffHostToday, we're opening the archives to bring you a special conversation with a true American icon, the late author, farmer, and activist, agrarian poet laureate, Wendell Berry.
He left behind a towering legacy, over 50 books of poetry, fiction, and essays that challenge how we treat our land, our food, and one another.
From his seminal critique of industrial agriculture, The Unsettling of America, to beloved novels like Jaber Crow, to the amazing Mad Farmer poems, Wendell was a champion for better ways of living and thinking.
I first met Wendell at a conference in San Francisco in 1993, and later that year I had the unforgettable privilege of visiting him and his wife Tanya at their Kentucky farm.
I was lucky enough to publish his work in collections I produced, like Farming in the Fate of Wild Nature, and even to receive his famously razor-sharp constructive criticism on writing that I was working on.
He was in San Francisco, and radio pioneer Davia Nelson of the Kitchen Sisters was there to capture it.
We talked about the absolute necessity of ecological health and food production, the failure of industrial farming, the disappearing creatureliness of our world, and his experienced advice for the next generation of would-be farmers.
In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Wendell Berry the National Humanities Medal.
I knew Wendell as a mentor and I hope as a friend, but mainly as an advocate for healthy food, healthy farming communities, and a more vibrant natural world.
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Today, we're opening the archives to bring you a special conversation with a true American icon, the late author, farmer, and activist, agrarian poet laureate, Wendell Berry.
He left behind a towering legacy, over 50 books of poetry, fiction, and essays that challenge how we treat our land, our food, and one another.
From his seminal critique of industrial agriculture, The Unsettling of America, to beloved novels like Jaber Crow, to the amazing Mad Farmer poems, Wendell was a champion for better ways of living and thinking.
I first met Wendell at a conference in San Francisco in 1993, and later that year I had the unforgettable privilege of visiting him and his wife Tanya at their Kentucky farm.
I was lucky enough to publish his work in collections I produced, like Farming in the Fate of Wild Nature, and even to receive his famously razor-sharp constructive criticism on writing that I was working on.
He was in San Francisco, and radio pioneer Davia Nelson of the Kitchen Sisters was there to capture it.
We talked about the absolute necessity of ecological health and food production, the failure of industrial farming, the disappearing creatureliness of our world, and his experienced advice for the next generation of would-be farmers.
In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Wendell Berry the National Humanities Medal.
I knew Wendell as a mentor and I hope as a friend, but mainly as an advocate for healthy food, healthy farming communities, and a more vibrant natural world.