Sorry I'm a little late, but I guess the time is prime in PDT. First, a little housekeeping. ClearAyes, you say that you are not very "spiritual", as if that was synonymous with belief in the dominate myth. I beg to differ. You are best known around the corner for your contributions of poetry. The writing, reading, and perception of poetry are all spiritual undertakings. While I pegged right away when I first encountered your contributions to CC's blog as a fellow skeptic, It was also evident that there is a great deal of depth to your intellect and character. So I'm not buying your claim of non-spirituality, though your non-belief is as natural in my world view as breathing. It is a fact, though that I didn't learn to "breath" until I was past 40.
BTW, your poetry selection is from a collection titled "The Country of Marriage". Here is another from the same source.
The Mad Farmer's Love Song
O when the world's at peace
And every man is free
then will I go down unto my love
O and I may go down
several times before that.
I hope you've all been able to find a WB bio. If not I'll try to locate one and point you too it. Tonight I
want to,as requested recommend some reading. Some of these are most likely out of print, but are available everywhere used.
In poetry, some of my favorites are "Sayings and Doings" , Sabbaths, & The WindowPoems. WB lives on a hillside overlooking the Kentucky River near Port Royal, Ky. , a small town in Henry County. His writing shack, located on the riverbank a few hundred yards upstream, features a 40 pane window salvaged years ago from a demolished building. The poems in this collection were inspired, over a period of years by scenes viewed through this window.
WB is probably best known as a essayist focussed on cultural, particularly agricultural, issues. You can discern some direction from a selection of titles. His breakout book , in 1977, was called The Unsettling of America, which is a not too subtle play on words. It also remains for the most part, very relevant to our present condition. Others are "What are People For", Home Economics, "Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community", and more recently" The Way of Ignorance". I recommend any or all, but you've got to start somewhere.
His fiction works now span 50 years, the first started in the late 50's and published in 1960. Some of the more recent and best are "Hannah Coulter", Jayber Crow, "A World Lost", and my personal favorite," The Memory of Old Jack".
Why should you read Wendell Berry? He is, after all, an unapologetic Christian, and we (most of us) are not. He is one of a half-dozen C's that I do more than humor or tolerate. But most of his religiously tinged writing is directed at his fellow Christians, insisting that they live up to their ideals. He does something similar for all of us in his collection "Citizenship Papers".
It's now 11:33 here in EDT, so I'm off again. I'll try to start earlier tomorrow, but the Irish and I sometimes have a little party on Saturday night. You won't be hearing about that, though. In the interim, try to find some WB.
Windhover
5 comments:
Reviewing, it appears that I posed a question last night and then failed to answer it. I'll try again. (And probably again and again.)
From a purely personal perspective, I must tell you (as if you hadn't already guessed) that I am hopelessly chauvinistic about farms, farmers, and farming. It is beyond me why anyone would care to live any other way. I have done a number of things for money over the years, but always with the goal of getting into (or back into) farming. This has been the case since I was 16, when my parents shoved me off to University (against my will, but fortified with a National Merit Scholarship) to major in physics. I wanted to go farm with my grandfather, and have always looked at flunking out 2 years later as "dodging a bullet".
WB writes about those dreams and romances that I only felt as undefined yearnings back
In the day. His fiction makes them real to me, and his nonfiction legitamizes and articulates an agrarian
Past that keeps calling me, even at this late date (and age). The poetry is just icing on the cake. Taught by well-meaning but clueless teachers to despise poetry (forced to memorize rather than understand), I was in my 40's before I had the nerve to approach it again.
Back to the question. Damn, I do digress. You should read WB because he has something to say to a culture that has lost its' way, and in many ways whatever moral bearings it once had. I say' whatever' because I believe it is important to recognize that although our nation was founded on high ideals, we have slavery and genocide on our rap sheet. And the recent debacles of greed and avarice are not new. I refer you to the' gilded age', and the absolute fact that we have never been, as our national myth insists, a classless society. Wendell unfailingly speaks to those ideas, but somehow (I can't do it) resists becoming cynical. He is a hopeful writer, as the short poem I offered last night indicates. I hope you will all come along. It will be rewarding.
Windhover
ClearAyes:
Good evening, dear. I left you a message around on the other corner. All in fun, as I'm sure you know. Just checking to see if an alarm is raised there.
PS: let the others here know that part the third may have to
wait. My index is tired and I've promised the Irish some Mexican tonight. FOOD, PMT, Mexican food. I know what you were thinking.
Back later.
Windhover
PMT:
Sorry about the mess. The blog appeared to not be accepting my comment, and I kept trying, and it took them all at once. I tried to edit them out but couldn't without wiping out all. Told you I was a dumbass.
Wind
This is getting confusing...I'm not sure exactly where to go with so much happening...
I still can't find that WB article, but I seem to be missing one issue of one of the magazines...not really important, just hate when my memory messes with me.
This will be a WH response...wine glass in hand.
I'm definitely getting some WB reading soon...I realized when I went to look for something that I have a least 3 shelves filled with food writing...SO...it is obviously important. WH speaks to something that I come as close to as I possibly can in our backyard...we haven't gotten nearly as good as it could be, but we grow a lot of things, especially in summer...I haven't yet mastered winter growing...stupid, I know, as I could probably grow quite a bit.
Anyway...one of the things that I have come to understand over the years is that we, as a country, need to move backward a bit to the individually owned family farm where a farmer can raise what they want and need to and sell the rest. Better for the animals, the food, and the land. I have recently been reading Michael Pollen's books about people who have institued unique and clever ways to get the best and healthiest yield from the land. It still seems to work in many developed European countries and there is a movement back to the land. I am mostly thinking of France where I have the most experience. But there is a care given to how they grow their food and raise their animals...they seem to have plenty of food, and how great is it to know who grew it! The EU is working hard to wreck the system(I have a few stories)through lack of understanding and trying to use the one size fits all concept...
I think that Americans have to start asking the important questions about our food supply and how the animals are raised and treated...If we were able to start reducing the size of the awful factory farms and dairies we would eliminate any number of problems, environmental and health issues. We destroy the land, the air, the animals and all in the name of big profits, keeping the small farmer in debt to big corporations, who reap all the profit.
This country also needs to re-evaluate its food consumption patterns...who really needs to eat meat everyday? Who needs all the processed foods that line our grocery shelves...no one. This is such a complex issue that it would take a very long time and very many blogs to try and explain it all...WH is living it and we can only stand back and admire...
I think it is a very difficult and demanding life and I know that I could could most likely do it if I had started a bit younger because I love the idea of being relatively self-sufficient and I love the beauty of the land itself. But, I also know that I would probably never really have time to paint, and that would also cut a hole into my soul.
I think I have started to wander a bit...and I've only had a couple of sips of wine! Have to think a bit more and try to better allign my thoughts.
Cheers for now...
What an afternoon! We were busily and unexpectedly selling "the boat". We scarcely use it, now that the grandkids have their own backyard pool and would rather swim there than in our local lake (I know, WH, I know!) So, Fred got an offer he couldn't refuse and in the next couple of days, the 89 Renell outboard will be a memory.
WH, thanks for your vote of confidence on my spirituality. As you recognized, I didn't mean it in a religious sense, but I tend to connect spirituality with the 'sense of soul' or, that "something that makes us what we are".
If spirituality can be defined as appreciation of beauty outside of oneself, then I'm with you.
Recently, say the past ten years or so, I have come to believe that our sense of beauty is a delicate offshoot of evolution. It is to our survival advantage to make our lives more pleasurable. Every neural mutation that makes members of our species more capable of creating something that is enjoyable for ourselves and for other human (farming, cooking, art poetry) adds to our chances of long term survival. The force of evolution isn't interested in individuals, isn't "interested" in anything at all. It just keeps chugging along. If some of those mutations take a wrong jog (and they do all the time), then we will not survive.
Maybe I just meant that I'm not philosophically anthropocentric. WOW, that's a lot different than spiritual. I must be on my second glass of wine!
Good evening, friends. Enjoy that Mexican food WH....just about anything tastes better with cilantro.
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