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In 1977 Wendell Berry warned that the rise of corporate farming and the disappearance of the family farm were destroying local communities and economies. These developments also caused soil erosion, and reduced the quality of the food we eat. Those who gathered at Georgetown College in Berry’s home state of Kentucky to mark the 25th anniversary of his book The Unsettling of America saw no sign that these trends have changed. But Berry’s students and admirers remain committed to envisioning a different future and devising some alternatives.

Wendell Berry has lived as a farmer and writer in Kentucky for a quarter century. In his fiction, essays and poetry, he often meditates on the human relation to the earth. His poem “The Slip” is precipitated by a disaster. A river bank has given way, leaving an acre of farmland swallowed by water. The poet gazes at the devastation and bemoans the utter loss of valued land and the dissolution of the farmer’s plans for it. The poem is describing a calamity, yet a profound calm pervades it.