Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Title
Date(s)
- 1967-1968 (Creation)
Extent
1 folder(s), 9 item(s), 9 page(s)
Name of creator
Biographical history
Wendell Berry is a farmer and writer of poetry, novels, prose, and essays. He writes to Merton from Port Royal, Kentucky. Themes in his writings include concern for the land, environmental conservation, the value of work, and the culture of agricultural communities.x000D
Merton began a correspondence with Berry as he began to come of his own as a poet and author. Berry had returned to a family farm in his native Kentucky and was a professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Merton could appreciate Berry's simple life of nature and solitude on a farm and employing traditional agricultural means, both critical of the effects of modern farm machinery on rural life. Though Berry claimed that his poems could only loosely be considered haiku, Merton referred to them as such and included some in his magazine «Monks Pond». Berry shared Merton's opposition to Vietnam and knew many of Merton's friends from Lexington.
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
This set of correspondence contains nine letters between two like-minded poets and authors. In his correspondence with Berry, one can see seeds of Merton's interest in the environment. One can only guess at the directions in this vein that his friendship with Berry might have led him. Among the letters are original typed and handwritten letters by Berry, and carbon copies of Merton's letters.
System of arrangement
Records are arranged chronologically. Records are not divided into Series.
Conditions of access and use elements
Conditions governing access
Regulations governing use of the collection can be found here: (‹https://bellarmine.libraryhost.com/index.php/rules›).
Technical access
Conditions governing reproduction
Languages of the material
Scripts of the material
Language and script notes
Finding aids
Acquisition and appraisal elements
Custodial history
Immediate source of acquisition
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information
Accruals
Related materials elements
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related archival materials
See also contributions to «Monks Pond» (‹https://bellarmine.on.worldcat.org/search?queryString=no%3A19629065›), pp. 96 and 215.