Latest / The Daily Poem / Wendell Berry’s “In a Motel Parking Lot, Thinking of Dr. Williams”

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Wendell Berry’s “In a Motel Parking Lot, Thinking of Dr. Williams” · The Daily Poem

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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, September 7th, 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Wendell Berry,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it begins a week of Wendell Berry poetry,
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  SPEAKER_00: our attempt at a continuing tribute to the life and work of Berry,
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  SPEAKER_00: who passed away last week.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is called In a Motel Parking Lot, Thinking of Dr. Williams.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Williams in question is fellow poet William Carlos Williams.
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  SPEAKER_00: One of Barry's most underrated works of nonfiction,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think,
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  SPEAKER_00: is his book-length treatment of Williams poetry,
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  SPEAKER_00: The Poetry of William Carlos Williams of Rutherford.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's the title of that book.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's clear,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you read that book,
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  SPEAKER_00: that Barry has paid very close attention to the poetry of William Carlos Williams.
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  SPEAKER_00: He has a great respect for the man and for his work.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he has been Moved and influenced by that poetry.
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  SPEAKER_00: So here we have something like a brief manifesto, a poem about what poetry ought to be and do.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he includes Williams in the title as an affirmation that he was such a poet.
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  SPEAKER_00: What Barry seems careful to say here,
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  SPEAKER_00: intent on asserting here, is that Poetry can't just exist for art's sake.
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  SPEAKER_00: Poetry must serve a people.
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  SPEAKER_00: It has to have a human purpose.
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  SPEAKER_00: It must tend toward survival.
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  SPEAKER_00: It must foster life and tell the truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that idea taken poorly or in the hands of the artist of little skill,
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  SPEAKER_00: it could be problematic.
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  SPEAKER_00: It could be reductionistic.
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  SPEAKER_00: It could end up leaving you with nothing more than a stripped down soulless allegory.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Barry,
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  SPEAKER_00: here and in the rest of his poetic writings,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think proves that it's possible to create beautiful,
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  SPEAKER_00: moving poetry that is not self-serving.
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem, in a motel parking lot, thinking of Dr. Williams.
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  SPEAKER_00: One.
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  SPEAKER_00: The poem is important, but not more than the people whose survival it serves.
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  SPEAKER_00: One of the necessities, so they may speak what is true and have the patience for beauty.
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  SPEAKER_00: The weighted grain field,
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  SPEAKER_00: the shady street,
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  SPEAKER_00: the well-laid stone in the changing tree whose branches spread above.
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  SPEAKER_00: For want of songs and stories they have dug away the soil,
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  SPEAKER_00: paved over what is left,
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  SPEAKER_00: set up their perfunctory walls in tribute to no god for the love of no man or woman.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that the good that was here cannot be called back except by long waiting,
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  SPEAKER_00: by great sorrows remembered and to come,
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  SPEAKER_00: by invoking the thunderstones of the world and the vivid air.
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  SPEAKER_00: 2.
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  SPEAKER_00: The poem is important, as the want of it proves.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is the stewardship of its own possibility,
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  SPEAKER_00: the past remembering itself in the presence of the present moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: The power learned and handed down to see what is present and what is not.
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  SPEAKER_00: The pavement laid down and walked over regardlessly by exiles,
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  SPEAKER_00: here only because they are passing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh, remember the oaks that were here,
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  SPEAKER_00: the leaves,
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  SPEAKER_00: purple and brown,
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  SPEAKER_00: falling,
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  SPEAKER_00: the nuthatches walking headfirst down the trunks,
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  SPEAKER_00: crying onk onk in the brightness as they are doing now in the cemetery across
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  SPEAKER_00: the street, where the past and the dead keep each other.
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  SPEAKER_00: To remember, to hear and remember, is to stop and walk on again to a livelier, surer measure.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is dangerous to remember the past only for its own sake.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dangerous to deliver a message you did not get.
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  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with another subscriber episode and then here on
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  SPEAKER_00: the main channel on Wednesday.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
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  SPEAKER_00: find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past daily poems,
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  SPEAKER_00: like or share a daily poem, and become a subscriber and supporter of the show.
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  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.