Abstract

This study analyzes the centrality of peace and place in Wendell Berry’s environmental poetry. It harbors on their intersection in order to construct a feasible argument about Berry’s vision of sustainability as constituted by peace and place. It further links the theoretical premises of ecocomposition to practice through critically analyzing Wendell Berry’s selected peace poems: “The Peace of Wild Things,” “The Want of Peace,” “Window Poems,” and “A Standing Ground.” Adopting an environmentally holistic approach, this article presses for a unitary act of shared responsibility in order to protect and preserve our ecosystems. It thematically investigates the outcomes that environmental sustainability would have on the human identity. Importantly, the poet in these poems exhibits an alarmingly detrimental rift in his relationship to the human society due to his lack of any bioregional belonging there. However, his awareness of his ecological identity—that is much strengthened while being in the natural world—sustains peace and equilibrium into his life. Berry’s poetic diagnosis of such ecologically critical issues actually highlights the indispensable role of ecocompositionists and locates the dynamics of peace and place as environmental tropes necessary for sustaining nature.