This is another piece, a shorter "critical appraisal essay," that I wrote for my Craft of Writing class. I checked out half a dozen collections of poetry from the school library, but Wendell Berry's "Farming: A Hand Book" caught my attention. He writes pastoral/nature/farming poetry that actually results from his lifestyle as a farmer. Sometimes political, sometimes meditative, usually simple and earthy, always authentic. He's lived in Kentucky with his wife and family(?) for the past two decades, farming the earth organically (using horses not tractors, for example) and writing poetry, essays, fiction, etc. He inspires me to do likewise.
"Born to Farming: Connection and Reincarnation in the Poetry of Wendell Berry"
Farming: A Hand Book is Wendell Berry’s guide not to the literal techniques of farming, but to living as “the grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming” (3). First published in 1967, the work is divided into three unnamed sections of poetry and a short play entitled “The Bringer of Water.” The second section of poetry contains a series “Mad Farmer” poems, which allow Berry to express more fiery and provocative sentiments through an alter ego. Occasional internal rhyme is the closest he comes to any conventional poetic device, and his diction is straightforward and unostentatious. Overall, the poems are simple, peaceful, usually pastoral, and advocate a lifestyle of the same qualities. More than just an agricultural activity, farming is presented as a way of living, thinking, and being that is rewarding, beautiful, and sustainable. It is the ideal life.
As a farmer, Berry has a view of the world that is joyfully reincarnational, of life as “only the earth risen up a little way into the light, among the leaves” (20). To him, life is cyclical: “Going and coming back, it forms its curves, a nerved ghostly anatomy in the air” (7). Thus, he will “take [his] stand on the earth like a tree in a field, passing without haste or regret toward what will be, my life a patient willing descent into the grass” (31). Ultimately, Berry sees an organic sameness between human and plant life and a union of every life with the earth--all are dust, either constituting life or nourishing it. The farmer’s life is but one stage of this cycle.
This reincarnational understanding stems from the farmer’s central concern of connection: connection to his own birth, present existence, and imminent death; to his family and community; and most vitally with the earth, even a specific plot of land, as the context and source of his life. First, the meditative quality of Berry’s writing is an example of him connecting to himself as a farmer and is a model for others to do likewise. Part of the farmer’s meditation is appreciating the roots of his birth and the fruits of his present life. Another is coming to face his mortality. Death is presented as good and necessary, as “the seed of the beginning and the end” (31)--the last that the farmer sows. By understanding the cyclical nature of his life, he will be able to connect with it.
Secondly, human relationships are a foundation of the ideal life. Several poems explore the idea of human connection in spite of humanity’s tendency towards inhumanity. They show that the simple and peaceful farmer will inevitably face isolation from the brooding events of the outside world. And yet, if he will “purge [his] mind of the airy claims of church and state, and observe the ancient wisdom of tribesmen and peasant, who understood they labored on their earth only to lie down in it in peace, and were content” (20)--if he can do this, he will be capable of establishing more humane connections with the larger community. These social connections contribute to the evolving rotation of life, as individuals die but the community continues. Marriage especially is an elemental relationship, seen as a source of restful security and identity (“Air and Fire”) and fiery renewal (“Earth and Fire”). It is the source of the family and all of its inner life and connections. In marriage, the farmer and his wife die to themselves but provide life to each other and to future generations--it makes the farmer “time and again, a new man” (47).
Lastly, “A Standing Ground” explains how a farmer’s connection with a literal place on earth will keep him from becoming “uprooted” in a more figurative sense. Ironically, turning away from crowds to be “apart” holds the “promise of life and peace” and “the healing shadow of the woods.” The farmer by his work is capable of “Enriching The Earth,” as another poem title suggests, and through this he brings forth further life. Only as he serves and becomes unified with the earth on which he lives will he be able to live fully or combat evil.
Farming: A Hand Book is an instructive chronicle of Berry’s own life as a farmer. In it, he has laid down from mind to page his crop of words, which in turn offers seed to readers and inspires them to also grow into the rich life of the farmer. This life’s agricultural work, it’s holistic connectivity, and it’s simple, meditative, and peaceful nature would allow them to live more meaningful and moral lives. Quietly from outside the city, they could sow change in and offer nourishment to other humans and the earth, even into death. Should they choose the farmer’s life, they will surely keep Wendell Berry’s manual close at hand.
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