Comments on: Wendell Berry More than Nature Poet

By: Tom Murphy

Tom Murphy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Loren, thanks for these ongoing reflections on A Timbered Choir – one of my favorite books. WB is certainly much more than a nature poet… but that’s not to dismiss the centrality of the created world in his work. His critique of our society’s self-defeating agricultural, environmental, economic and cultural strategies runs deep… and has the frequently frightening (and yet heartening) consistency of a ’single fabric’ world-view… he makes connections.

In my AP Lit class, after working through Berry’s fine novel A Place on Earth, I presented “The year begins with war” to students in an effort to expand their perceptions of his range as a writer. One student, who will soon be off to the Air Force Academy, responded to the poem by saying that while he admires Berry’s skill as a writer he cannot accept the political or economic positions of the poem. Another student took the poem quite personally and said he didn’t appreciate being called a whore… so he understood.

Seems that WB properly understood brings not peace but a sword. His work forces a division within thoughtful people. That’s the effect of an oxymoronic cadenza like:

And liberty to be
A peaceful murderer,
A murderous worshipper,
A slender glutton, or
A healthy whore.

Can we stomach a poetry that names our faults and calls us to a saner vision and healthier life? I’m guessing that we still stone prophets.

As for what he thinks of our current situation, take a look at his thoughts on the new national security strategy at Orion.org. I’ve got a link to that and a mess of other Berry resources at http://www.brtom.org/wb/berry.html

Many thanks, Loren, for your exceptional site which I’ve just discovered. I hope to become a regular reader.

tom

By: Bill Knott

Bill Knott — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Berry is indebted i think to William Stafford,
whose name is not on your list of preferred poets��

By: Loren

Loren — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Tom, if they’re going to stone ME, I hope it’s a virtual stonning. I’ve taught enough to know that my values aren’t shared by a majority of people — doesn’t mean my values are wrong, though. Unfortunately, I discovered Berry after I quit teaching.

Actually, Bill, I do have links to William Stafford on my main page, though they’re listed alphabetically by first name because of some quirks in the alphabetizing ability of this blog — or at least my ability to manipulate it.

By: Pem

Pem — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I posted the following somewhat related thoughts at: http://deeplanguage.blogspot.com/

In Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology, Robert Pool quotes from David Dietz, Atomic Energy in the Coming Era, published in 1945:
“Instead of filling the gasoline tank of your automobile two or three times a week, you will travel for a year on a pellet of atomic energy the size of a vitamin pill….The day is gone when nations will fight for oil….
No baseball game will be called off on account of rain in the Era of Atomic Energy…. No city will experience a winter traffic jam because of heavy snow. Summer resorts will be able to guarantee the weather and artificial suns will make it as easy to grow corn and potatoes indoors as on the farm.”

Reading Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture has left me with ideas that keep echoing, such as the idea that “We began to see the whole Creation merely as raw material, to be transformed by machines into a manufactured Paradise.” (p. 56) I wish I could better get students to think hard about whether they really believe that technology will allow us to transcend all limits.