Well, after several false starts, here goes nothing. My purpose here is to introduce PMT to my friend, and mentor of sorts, Wendell Berry, and to those of you who are familiar with his work, encourage you to delve more deeply into it. This first effort will be necessarily brief, because my battery is low. I intend to keep this going for some time, and will look to PMT for guidance as to whether to continue this thread or simply start new ones.
I encourage each of you to find a reliable bio on Wendell. It is important to know his background and history, as they are very relevant to understanding his work, which is both vast and varied. I would supply a link, but you are familiar with my ineptness re the 'internets'.
The piece you read last week 'The Burden of the Gospels', is the tip of an intellectual iceberg. Although he is best known as an essayist, WB is a poet and novelist. His poetry has been labeled as didactic, (in, I suppose, a reference to some of his longer poems being in the style of Virgil's Georgics), but that is much too narrow and confining. His 'Sabbath poems' written over a long series of Sunday mornings when he visits a secluded hillside on his farm, are very insightful and to me, represent the only divinity I recognize, Nature. There are also the 'Window' poems.
WB's fiction is a series based on a fictional Kentucky farming community. My favorite, 'The Memory of Old Jack' seemed when I first encountered it 18 years ago, to be the story of my life so far, but we didn't know each other at the time. I'll have a lot more to say about all this later. iPhone says it's time to publish or risk losing it again.
Thanks, PMT.
Windhover
8 comments:
Thank you, WH :)
It occurs to me that Blogspot and, perhaps, blogs in general do not have the ability to allow one to 'bump' posts to the top of the list. This is unfortunate since I would like to be able to do so with your recent post.
WH...I just recently read an article in one if my food magazines...I will have to go back and find it. I am only vaguely familar with him but thought at the time that I wnated to read more of his work. Is there a particular collection of his work that you would recommend as a place to start?
I have a whole collection of food writings and if I remember correctly...his writing is about the land and food...??? I would definitely like to see more about this in the very near future...you know...like tomorrow.
I do love to rant but I also like to learn. Thanks for the start on this.
WH, WM, PMT, There have been things happening here since later this afternoon.
I also missed going back to check on PMT Descarte post. It wouldn't have made any difference if I had. I still wouldn't have hooked it up to C.C.'s call out.
I did see the cover of the NY Post, but didn't have time to comment. Knowing a little about Rupert Murdoch's reputation AND the reputation of the Post as a tabloid, I was a little non-plussed to see the headline. But the Post is known for good sports coverage, so.....
WH, I'm not very spiritual, but that doesn't mean I don't like a good read. Lead us on to Wendell Berry.
I wasn't going to clutter this blog with poetry, but I was interested to see which Wendell Berry poems were available on the internet. There were several that I enjoyed very much. (I am planning on posting one over there.)
Since I am unfamiliar with his work, I could be wrong, but this seems to go to the heart of it.
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Wendell Berry
Just checking in so you will know that i didn't fall off the face of the earth...wherever that is.
All's Quiet on the Western Front. I think PMT is waiting for WH's next installment.
Cheers.
WH,
I decided back when I got my Kindle, about a year ago, to set this policy: Prior to purchasing any book from Amazon, I would check to see if it was available in Kindle format and, if so, I would purchase the Kindle book instead of a paper version.
Consequently, when I first searched for Mr. Berry's works, I searched for ones that are available for the Kindle. I found only one book ... and it was not really his book. It was a book that sounded interesting, but one for which he only wrote the 'Forward. Now that I am thinking about it, I recall that the reason that book came up in the results was that I had searched using the terms Sabbath and Berry. That book turned out to be about 'living the Sabbath' every day. Of the various works of Mr. Berry that you mentioned in your post, 'The Real Farmer Philosopher', the Sabbath Poems initially struck my interest the most. So, it is no surprise that the book for which Mr. Berry wrote the 'Forward' also sounded interesting to me. That book is, in fact, titled, 'Living The Sabbath'. It was written by Norman Wirzba and I figured that perhaps I would buy that one eventually, but that at the moment I was interested Mr. Berry's own works. So I pushed ahead with my search.
I decided to search omitting the word Sabbath and, voila, I found that there are, in fact, numerous works of Mr. Berry's available for the Kindle. I searched the table of contents of a few of the collections of poems but, unfortunately, found none that contained the Sabbath Poems. However, having read a bit of Mr. Berry's bio on Wikipedia (I think that bio is probably pretty good, but I have no way of knowing), as well as a few of the reviews of his work by Amazon reviewers, I had discerned that Mr. Berry's 'Window Poems' are quite lauded. In light of that, I settled on purchasing a book titled, "The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry". I believe it has the full collection of the 'Window Poems'.
Maybe you will like this: Windows.
Cheers :)
PMT: Seems like Wiki got it right on WB. Thanks for Chick Corea. When I'm not dog-assed tired I'll tell you stumbling into a little three piece combo late one night in a Holliday Inn in Delaware, Ohio.
Windhover, tired as hell, but reading Genesis, again.
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