Remembering JFK

November Twenty Six Nineteen Hundred Sixty Three is the title of a 1963 poem by Wendell Berry, comprising a single volume. Ben Shahn's illustrations were added to this 1964 Limited Edition publication by George Braziller.

The poem memorializes President Kennedy, who was assassinated November 22, 1963 and laid to rest on the 25th of November. The next day, November 26, Berry begins his elegy: "We know the winter earth upon the body of the young president, and the early dark falling..." The title refers to the day after John F. Kennedy's funeral and the collective mourning and reflection of a nation. 

Berry and artist Shahn both signed this limited edition copy of the book, which makes the book collectible. But it's the commemorative lines in a gift inscription from the book's previous owner that made the book collectible for me, as it captured the mood of a nation during that time. The sentiment of both poet and book owner symbolizes and echoes what a nation felt and struggled with in the aftermath of the death of a very popular president:

To commemorate the greatest personal tragedy we have ever known together--November 22, 1963.

For Elizabeth because I love her more than life itself and because we both--if from afar--loved John, Jr., Caroline, and Jacqueline, and J.F.K.

Carl
May 18, 1964

A newspaper clipping about the death of JFK was also laid in the book.

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