Behind the JSTOR paywall, but the essay that made Wendell Berry an essential guide and companion for me is “Standing by Words.”
Against Mr. Winterowd's definition of literature, it will be instructive to place a definition by Gary Snyder, who says of poetry that it is “a tool, a net or trap to catch and present; a sharp edge; a medicine, or the little awl that unties knots.” It will be quickly observed that this sentence enormously complicates Mr. Winterowd's simplistic statement-message dichotomy. What Mr. Winterowd means by “message” is an “idea” written in the dullest possible prose. His book is glib, and glibness is an inescapable doom of language without standards. One of the great practical uses of the literary disciplines, of course, is to resist glibness — to slow language down and make it thoughtful. This accounts, particularly, for the influence of verse, in its formal aspect, within the dynamics of the growth of language: verse checks the merely impulsive flow of speech, subjects it to another pulse, to measure, to extra-linguistic consideration; by inducing the hesitations of difficulty, it admits into language the influence of the Muse and of musing.