How to Be a Poet By Wendell Berry (to remind myself) i Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet. You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill—more of each than you have—inspiration, work, growing older, patience, for patience joins time to eternity. Any readers who like your poems, doubt their judgment. ii Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air. Shun electric wire. Communicate slowly. Live a three-dimensioned life; stay away from screens. Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in. There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places. iii Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came. About three weeks ago Berry’s poem branded my mind, and since then I’ve been holding it there like an unwrapped package.
There are no unsacred places // there are only sacred places // And desecrated places My immediate reaction is hope. If Berry is right, and there are no unsacred places, we need to restore the desecrated ones. But immediate reactions stem from point of consumption, like eating a McChicken when I'm famished. I need to wait for a better time to assess. I am not an expert in Literature Criticism and Theory. I have some coursework, an old textbook and a Google search bar, so I am going to run with it. Literature criticism is less like criticism and more like a pair of those National Treasure glasses used to read the constitution. Each theory shows text in a new color. Two macro lenses to consider are Author Criticism, and The Text and The World. Here's a brief description of the author and the world. Wendell Berry is a Midwestern American, writer, activist and farmer. He cares about literature, soil conservation, nature, America, farming and community. The text emerges from, New Collected Poems and I'm not sure the exact date it was penned. It could have been written at any point between 1950 and 2013 and things have changed a bit since 1950. A few rapid alterations over the last 60 years have come in the areas of production, consumption and innovative technology. Berry reminds himself with strong language he does not require speed or technology to be a poet. Taking the approach of Narrative theory--"Narrative criticism is a type of literary analysis that is used to identify the larger narrative picture of a text” –we are to understand this poem is written by Berry, “to remind myself”. Berry is reminding himself his work is best done in focused, organic, silence. Chronologically this poem is delivered in three simple stanzas.
The poem starts with a present-tense active verb, “make a place to sit down.” An empowering command and perhaps a nod to the necessity of being intentional with silence. We then receive a mental inventory of Berry’s personal necessities, acknowledging he is dependent/lacking. Each of these traits he lists could be interpreted as attributes for success in life, but this is reader-response not innate meaning. To close stanza I Berry references readers, saying if they like what they read their judgement should be doubted. Here we have several opportunities to infer meaning. This could be standard Midwestern self-deprecation. It could be a slight at people for not understanding the true meaning of his poems. It could be a response to reader-response theory, which gained popularity in Literature Criticism during Berry’s career. –Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work. –. It could be an expose of his self-doubt and insecurity. It could simply be a reminder to himself critics and readers are not his source of affirmation What does it mean to you? Lines 9-11 of stanza II are the sweet spot. “Unsacred” is a made-up word, but we all understand it. It means something is not sacred. Berry uses the double negative, “nothing not sacred”. Or, everything is sacred. He affirms this with the next line, “there are only sacred places.” And then speaks into the confusion with the final line “and desecrated places.” There could be great time spent debating innate goodness, but this is not that time. Whether organic or learned, bad things are done, and the necessity for restoration exists. Examining the author and the time sheds some light on potential meaning in the poem. I mentioned one of the things Wendell cares deeply about is soil conservation. I was listening to someone talk about soil once, and it was as if he were excitedly explaining a magical world. Soil is important for all the living things in the world to grow. I am not a scientist. I do taxes for a living. But I know yields are important for business growth. I also know short term yields are good in the short term and long-term yields are good in the long term. One thing good businesses focus on is long-term, consistent yields. Unless they have short-term financial pressures or are short-sighted people. In which case they care a lot about making money as quickly as possible. They forget about things like silence, reverence, consistency, long-term yields and sustainability, because the pace of life directs all decisions. The unfortunate result when this happens in farming is the soil takes a huge hit. The rich life giving nutrients to plants and animals and humans is depleted, and the sustainable growth of everything is truncated. Yields suffer. Once the life-giving sacred thing is desecrated, corrective action is required. There are a few different methods for revitalizing soil. A topical, cosmetic application of chemicals (a short-term fix), crop rotations, cover crops, biosolids, and patience. I'm going to extract a moral, and please remember this is reader-response and may not have been the intention of the poet's original words. Reverence and sustainability work together, because without reverence things fall apart. There are many times when people say “this soil is bad” or call a place desolate or depleted. In her guideposts for Wholehearted living Brene Brown tells people to "cultivate" 10 different characteristics. They are characteristics that emerged in people who seemed to hit the metrics for living well. Cultivate, in farming, means to prepare soil for planting. There are too many metaphors to harvest and too many parables to reference so I will leave you with this. To Wendell Berry, words, marriage, soil, and nature were practical and sacred things. We are made of soil and we are becoming soil and in between the soil gives us life. Reverence is cultivating sustainable yields, and restoring sacred places. There are no unsacred places // there are only sacred places // and desecrated places Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came. I am going to hand you one more lens. Figures and Tropes Criticism–literary trope is the use of figurative language, via word, phrase or an image, for artistic effect such as using a figure of speech—What is the picture it is painting? There is a beautiful back and forth rounding out the final seven lines of this stanza. Prayers returned, reverent silence, quiet creation. It is tempting to shout for a voice in a fast-paced world. Tempting to clamor for the minutes of fame and attention and affirmation. Step out of that and do the hard work of cultivating. Restore the sacred places.
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I'm a Hoosier. I like the outdoors. Taxes are my job. I write for a living. This Blog
Writing my way to an adult life of minimalism, sustainability, and joy rooted in Truth. I'm learning, unlearning, and relearning.
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