Book Review #22 – Wendell Berry, “The Country of Marriage” (A Collection of Poems)

Book Review #22 – Wendell Berry, “The Country of Marriage” (A Collection of Poems).

“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.” (Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace). 

Short Bio of Wendell Berry. The life of Mr. Berry reads like one of his novels. How does one describe this man who refuses to be categorized or stereotyped… a cantankerous prophet; a gentleman farmer; an unconventional but fervent Christian; a consistent pacifist; a helpful neighbor; a staunch environmentalist; a satisfied family man; an independent thinker; a cultural critic; an unashamed contrarian; a faithful husband; a church-going Baptist; a man with deep convictions; an amiable friend; a peaceful protester; a profound author. Speaking of which, Wendell Berry has published over 50 books covering a wide smattering of genres: novels, poetry, short stories, essays, articles, columns, letters, speeches, interviews. He was born in 1934 in rural Kentucky to a family that had been farmers for over five generations. His father was a highly regarded lawyer and tobacco farmer, and Wendell said he learned a lot about logic and reason when watching his father build his case in the courtroom. Wendell had high academic goals though, and he earned a BA and MA in English at the U. of Kentucky, after which he went to a special writer’s program at Stanford. While there he published his first novel, Nathan Coulter, that was a roaring success at his tender young age of 25. He then taught English for many years at the UK English department, and at NYU in the Creative Writing program. At this time, at 29 years of age in 1965, much to the bafflement of all who knew him as a rising literary superstar, he decided to move his wife and two children from New York city back to his rural Kentucky roots and buy a 12-acre farm adjacent to his family’s land in Port Royal. They have lived on and farmed this same plot of land that has grown to over 100 acres, raising sheep and growing their food, for over 50 years. All the while, as is obvious, Wendell has been a prolific writer as well as a productive farmer, and has earned any number of literary awards nationally and internationally. He has published 12 highly acclaimed novels, 25 volumes of poetry, 16 collections of essays on a huge variety of topics, and numerous short story collections. His move from literary stardom in the elite circles of New York to a Kentucky farm stunned everyone but himself. His faculty chairman swore he was ruining a spectacular future; his publisher lamented that he could have made Wendell famous. But Wendell was determined to act on his convictions, that he needed to walk his talk, that if he were to write effectively about the virtues and struggles and joys of rural community life that was on his heart, then he would need to participate in that life on an intimate level. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that Mr. Berry chose to leave literary stardom only to become an international celebrity author. He stuck to his guns, literally, and fleshed out his moral responsibility to work the land while working his typewriter. Wendell calls himself a “marginal” Christian, and no one is sure what he means by that. I do know that he is unique in that as a writer who is a Christian (as opposed to a “Christian writer”), he is able to talk about God without resorting to God-talk, and refreshingly speak of biblical topics without becoming glib, sanctimonious, or feeling obligated to following some party line. Unsurprisingly, Wendell Berry has continued to live into his convictions… he still does not own a computer or cellphone; there is no answering machine attached to his landline; he uses old-school farming techniques he learned from the Amish; he does not have electricity in his writing studio. Wendell Berry is truly one a kind, and as the Irish sing in their pubs, we’ll never see the likes of him again.

Some Favorite Quotes of Wendell Berry. One could fill a few books of Wendell Berry quotes, but here are a few of my favorites:

“… life is the precarious interplay of effort and grace.” (Watch With Me).

“Nothing exists for its own sake, but for a harmony greater than itself which includes it.” 

“I am made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life before birth, and I am also deeply uncomfortable by the taking of human life after birth.” (from an interview in which he voiced his opposition to abortion, the death penalty, and war of any kind).

“When I figured out that I could be perfectly happy and not be a writer, I became a better writer.” 

“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.” 

“What I stand for is what I stand on.” 

“The ecological teaching of the Bible is simply inescapable: God made the world because He wanted it made. He thinks the world is good, and He loves it. It is His world; He has never relinquished title to it. And He has never revoked the conditions, bearing on His gift to us of the use of it, that oblige us to take excellent care of it.”
(What Are People For?)

“Especially among Christians in positions of wealth and power, the idea of reading the Gospels and keeping Jesus’ commandments as stated therein has been replaced by a curious process of logic. According to this process, people first declare themselves to be followers of Christ, and then they assume that whatever they say or do merits the adjective ‘Christian.’” (Blessed are the Peacemakers: Christ’s Teachings of Love, Compassion, and Forgiveness)

“As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.” (Jayber Crow)

“This, I thought, is what is meant by ‘thy will be done’ in the Lord’s Prayer, which I had prayed time and again without thinking about it. It means that your will and God’s will may not be the same. It means there’s a good possibility that you won’t get what you pray for. It means that in spite of your prayers you are going to suffer.”
(Jayber Crow)

“Where is our comfort but in the free, uninvolved, finally mysterious beauty and grace of this world that we did not make, that has no price? Where is our sanity but there? Where is our pleasure but in working and resting kindly in the presence of this world?” (Economy and Pleasure)

The ‘Mad Farmer’ Poems. Mr. Berry enjoyed an alter ego in this series of recurring poems, 16 in all, about a rebellious, eccentric farmer who offers his anti-industrialist, pro-agrarian perspectives on life. This “mad farmer” is quite the contrarian with a lot of opinions about capitalism, the environment, spirituality, community, the need for harmony in all of creation, and discovering wisdom in all the places that are overlooked by the modern world. The “mad farmer” apparently thinks that if the world is somewhat crazy, then maybe we can find some sanity in the so-called crazy people…

“To be sane in a mad time
is bad for the brain, worse
for the heart. The world
is a holy vision, had we clarity
to see it—a clarity that men
depend on men to make.”

The “Sabbath Poems.” Wendell Berry developed long ago a liturgy of his own every Sunday morning. He would walk around his property and “go free from the tasks and intentions of my workdays.” He said that during his walks “my mind becomes hospitable to unintended thoughts, to what I am very willing to call inspiration.” It was during these Sunday walks that he composed a powerful group of meditations simply entitled “Sabbath Poems.” Mr. Berry once commented that these poems were “written from a particular place and on particular sabbaths, and so should be read as part of a spiritual practice, and as poems, in some sense, devoted to dwelling, to living thoughtfully, in one place.” Here’s a profound example of one of his “inspirations”:

“Whatever is foreseen in joy

Must be lived out from day to day.

Vision held open in the dark

By our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for that

The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled

By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap,

Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood

Rests on our day, and finds it good. (Sabbath Poem #10).

The Country of Marriage. Mr. Berry loved his marriage to Tanya, and he loved the whole idea of marriage. He saw it as metaphor in which joining oneself to a life partner and remaining faithful is like entering a “clearing” in a mysterious forest where the committed couple grows a garden and plants orchards together. Like a new landscape, marriage is full of beauty, the joys of the unknown. He compares marital intimacy with a farmer’s relationship with the land. He has said that marriage is an intentional community that is “self-bounding” and so dignifies all the other limits we find in life. He said that “marriage is the sexual feast and celebration that joins the couple to all living things and the fertility of the earth.” This particular poem is practically erotic with its pictures of planting seeds and enjoying deep streams, etc. Here’s an excerpt of this poem in which Berry is unusually personal, private, and almost too transparent:

“What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.”

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front. Wendell Berry mastered the art of crafting the pregnant phrase, the short groupings of words that give birth to the reader’s profound reactions, that inspire the imagination to expand on what the words mean, that invite the reader to take the phrase and give it further life by thoughtfully running with it. This “Mad Farmer” poem is Berry at his prophetic best, and could be considered a summary of much of what he believed. We’ve heard of orange juice concentrate, well, this poem is Berry concentrate, much of his philosophy condensed into a series of eccentric phrases, some ironic, some straightforward, all brilliant. One could write a whole book trying to unpack one simple phrase in this poem. In fact, Eugene Peterson did just that, authoring a wonderful book called “Practicing Resurrection.” Savor each phrase in this poem, and you’ll end up enjoying quite a feast.

“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 millennium. 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.”