A Wonder Is What It Is: Nick Offerman Reads 'A Warning to My Readers' by Wendell Berry

For National Poetry Month, actor, author, and woodworker Nick Offerman hosts "A Wonder Is What It Is," an audio series from All Of It with Alison Stewart dedicated to poet, activist, author, and Nick's personal hero: Wendell Berry. In four short installments, released every Friday throughout April, Nick will read a poem by Berry – poet, farmer, and environmental activist – and share his reflections.
 

In this first episode of four, Nick reads the poem “A Warning to My Readers.”

Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.
 

Produced by Simon Close
Mixing by Amber D Bruce
Music composed by Mark Greenberg at The Mayfair Workshop
Art by Greg Ruth