In my first semester at MTSU I made a friend of a fine young man, Henry Martin the 5th. My older son happens to be Edward Craig the 5th. A connection. They both went to Webb School, although years apart, they both had problems there, they both struggled with life, and they both expressed their emotions through poetry. My time here has shown me that I need to appreciate poetry more. I can better see that through it we can express feelings and truths at a higher level that mere rational thought. Poets speak to our higher nature.
With that in
mind, and given the status of Wendell Berry as a writer and environmentalist,
and with the objective of encouraging class discussion, I challenge you to read
some of his poetry and see if any speak to you. What was Wendell expressing? Did he express your feelings as well?
You can find the poems conveniently at https://www.poemhunter.com/wendell-berry/poems/ . For God’s sake, whatever you do, do not listen to the audio of a female computer voice reading them. I’ve only read a few of them, but will read more and post comments on ones that have a particular appeal to me. I encourage you to do the same.
Here is a
statement about Berry’s poems from an article at the Poetry Foundation: Reviewing Collected Poems, 1957-1982, New
York Times Book Review contributor David Ray called Berry’s style “resonant”
and “authentic,” and claimed that the poet “can be said to have returned
American poetry to a Wordsworthian clarity of purpose. ... There are times when
we might think he is returning us to the simplicities of John Clare or the
crustiness of Robert Frost. ... But, as with every major poet, passages in
which style threatens to become a voice of its own suddenly give way, like the
sound of chopping in a murmurous forest, to lines of power and memorable
resonance. Many of Mr. Berry’s short poems are as fine as any written in our
time.”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wendell-berry
Weekly Participation Summary
11/12 This post
11/12
Star Trek Wisdom for a Divided Nation post
11/12 Comment on Poetry Challenge
Week Thirteen Point Total – 5
Thirteen Week Cumulative Point Total – 65
The Apple Tree
ReplyDeleteI grew up around apple trees. Our family home was built in a former apple orchard, full of trees that produced green apples. Red apples trees were abundant at my grandfather’s farm. An apple tree can be a magical place, especially on a summer afternoon when you can eat apples and contemplate life under “the forked truck and branches” with “a foliage of small birds among them.” The Apple Tree evokes memories of pleasant moments connected to nature. It expresses the fact of the beauty and importance of nature and what we gain from “the accidents of the afternoon” if we take the time to notice.
With Thanksgiving impending, how about...
DeleteA Poem of Thanks
by Wendell Berry
I have been spared another day
to come into this night
as though there is a mercy in things
mindful of me. Love, cast all
thought aside. I cast aside
all thought. Our bodies enter
their brief precedence,
surrounded by their sleep.
Through you I rise, and you
through me, into the joy
we make, but may not keep.
“A Poem of Thanks” by Wendell Berry from Collected Poems. © North Point Press, 1985.
Before Dark
Deleteby Wendell Berry
From the porch at dusk I watched
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have made for joy.
He came down the river, splashing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing
on down out of sight. And still
I could hear the splashes
farther and farther away
as it grew darker. He came back
the same way, dusky as his shadow,
sudden beyond the willows.
The splashes went on out of hearing.
It was dark then. Somewhere
the night had accommodated him
—at the place he was headed for
or where, led by his delight,
he came.
“Before Dark” by Wendell Berry from Collected Poems. © North Point Press, 1985.
XII.
Deleteby Wendell Berry
The old man is in the last days
of work he has done and loved
for many years. He is mowing
with his old team, the white horse
and the black, on the open hillside
under the open sky, within
the surrounding woods. This work
once was known by many
of his kind, and he is one
of the last to know it. But now
as his time grows scarce, his work
rarer by the day, its sights and motions
could be filmed, its sounds recorded,
it could be preserved perhaps forever
by wonders of modern technology.
He says no. He thinks no.
He refuses with his whole heart
the already futile wish to make
of a past present a future past.
Being so saved, his days
would be lost, would be no longer
even a memory. He needs these last
of his workdays. He needs them to be
his last, his own, such days
as do not come to one unwilling
to let them go. Had he been unwilling
for them to go, they would not yet
have come. Had he not been glad
to be the only one to know them,
he would never have known them.
If he remembers them to the last, giving
his thanks, how great will be his reward!
“XII.” by Wendell Berry from A Small Porch. © Counterpoint, 2016.
VII.
Deleteby Wendell Berry
What a wonder I was
when I was young, as I learn
by the stern privilege
of being old: how regardlessly
I stepped the rough pathways
of the hillside woods,
treaded hardly thinking
the tumbled stairways
of the steep streams, and worked
unaching hard days
thoughtful only of the work,
the passing light, the heat, the cool
water I gladly drank.
“VII.” by Wendell Berry from A Small Porch. © Counterpoint, 2016.
Goods
Deleteby Wendell Berry
It’s the immemorial feelings
I like the best: hunger, thirst,
their satisfaction; work-weariness,
earned rest; the falling again
from loneliness to love;
the green growth the mind takes
from the pastures in March;
The gayety in the stride
of a good team of Belgian mares
that seems to shudder from me
through all my ancestry.
“Goods” by Wendell Berry from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint, 2012.