The importance of place, sustainability, and — above all — community.
By Cindy Lamb
One secret is that Wendell Berry, a novelist and messenger who pounds out the truth on a Royal typewriter, does not have call waiting. He is on the phone over fifteen minutes past the agreed time to call, so I have to wait. The strange yelp of a busy signal seems foreign in this age of voice mail.
In preparation for my story, "Common Ground," I thought it would be a good idea to go to one of the wisest sources of agriculture and activism to get a few questions answered on the subject of raising food in an urban setting such as the Highlands.
As gracious as a southern host and as firm as hands on a plow handle, his response is, “I don’t know a damn thing about it, but you can ask me.”
Well, now, is this not a journalist’s nightmare? The moment leaves us with a virtual sense of space and tranquility because it feels like I’m standing in the middle of a thousand acres with this man, and neither person is talking.
As I wince, I hear him smile.
“If you’ve got a piece of fertile land you can grow anything you want to,” he says, “Whatever will fit Kentucky’s climate. Can’t grow mangos, coffee or citrus of any kind, but there’s a lot that will come up and do just fine.”
It’s awkward. I hear one eyebrow raise. I feel the city tap water coursing through my veins and he knows it. The sun is melting into lavender and rust and I’m sure it’s getting past his bed time. I must sound like a high school creative writing student, prattling along with a few curious questions. I secretly wish I could send him e-mail but no, here he is on my phone.
I’m in awe of a man who is much like my grandfather - farming crops, hauling tobacco to market, hands spotted with sun - and wearing one of those big pocket protectors loaded with fountain pens from the bank and a little black comb. The only writing I witnessed of my grandfather was his perfect ink cursive in the family bank ledger. Wendell went a little further, I’d say.
The author has only had a day to rest from a turbulent week of travel and events.
“I’ve been traveling quite a bit,” he says, “to Washington, to Utah - to take part in the centennial celebration of my teacher, Wallace Stegner, who was born in 1909." Berry was one of the featured speakers at the Fellowship of Southern Writers in Chattanooga writer’s conference in Tennessee this year. He can give a gentle pull on the brim of his hat to Stegner.
Under the nurturing eye of his mentor - who would have turned 100 on February 18 - Berry studied creative writing beginning in 1958 at Stanford University. As published in the Salt Lake Tribune about the two scholars: ‘Where Stegner found his inspiration in the wilderness of the West, Berry has never strayed far from his home in Port Royal, Ky. While both wrote fiction and nonfiction, Stegner never approached poetry, and Berry has reveled in it throughout his writing career. While Stegner was puzzled by and almost hostile toward the radical tendencies of the '60s, Berry took a more analytic approach to the changes of that time.’
Somehow, this makes the gentleman farmer from Henry County seem young.
Young he is not - weary he is.
The next stop on March 2nd was Washington D.C. for a march against coal energy with mountaintop removal protest groups, the skies an unrelenting gray and frigid. The cherry blossoms weren’t out, but the protesters were - and truly a force of nature.Waiting back in Louisville was the opening of Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays, featuring Berry’s poetic works brought from the page to the stage in “Wild Blessings.”
The theater's production used about everything they could of Berry’s verse and then some - the visuals and music, breath-taking - the words, life affirming.
For a man who fits the descriptions of poet, agrarian philosopher and activist, Wendell Berry is quite a work of peace. And the other way around as well.
Self-reliant, viewed as a computer-free Luddite by the “passive vessels” who absorb television and the internet daily, and a man who would consider Thomas Jefferson a like-minded porch guest, Berry is probably more comfortable with the soil than he is our phone conversation.
Perhaps it’s best to stick to recent events. On the heels of WFPL arts and humanities reporter Elizabeth Kramer’s visit to his farm, I was inspired by the visuals created in her report. I recall that during the broadcast - which was picked up by NPR for the rest of the world outside Louisville to enjoy - three spring lambs were born in the barn that afternoon.
I asked him about the lambs - how many and for what purpose did he raise them?
“Freezer lambs and for breeding stock, mostly," he replies. “Sometimes we have triplets. This year I think we’ll have upwards of fifty of them.”
In my soft-palmed city slicker heart, I am kind of hoping they just make sweaters from their wool and that is it. Good to use everything, I know.
He seemed sort of baffled by all the fuss during the NPR interview and remained just as humble about it weeks later.
“People have been very kind - the director, the actors, everyone at the theater,” he says. “It’s been a good experience.”
Back to the city. I share the dilemma that is faced by front-yard gardeners in the Highlands and other Metro neighborhoods - and how the more picturesque lawn keepers look on in disdain.
“Well, that’s tough!” he growls.
Gives one pause to think of what my friends who’d like to raise chickens in the city limits would encounter.
“What should happen is that they’ll get fresh eggs,” he says. “Get yourself a rooster and you can get more chickens and it helps you wake up in the morning.”
There go extra trips to the grocery and alarm clocks down the same hole, I comment.
“It seems to me that you need to look into ‘The Pleasures of Eating’ he suggests. The essay focuses on the disconnect we have from our food. ‘If you contact your local Extension office, they’ll be glad to help you with any growing questions or direct you to the kind of community market you need.”
His own words, “Never buy far off what you can buy near home,” ring in my thoughts.
“We do go into Louisville to shop occasionally,” he says. “I enjoy going to Carmichael’s Books.”
I remind him of the countless Kentuckians, including Highlands residents Bob and Virginia Bush, who marched with him at the March 2nd mountaintop removal protest in the capitol. It was Bob who captured several good photographs of Wendell and Tanya Berry as they linked arms with energy activists Janisse Ray, Terry Tempest Williams, Terry Blanton and Bill McGibbon, and led hundreds of shivering marchers on a cold, wet spring day.
“Well, somebody should've gotten a good picture,” he chuckles, “I’ve never seen so many cameras in my life!” The shots of the bundled Berrys in parkas, hats and scarves show them both grinning and talking to other participants. “It was a rather uncomfortable day but those were some mighty nice people involved.”
So why was there so little coverage in Kentucky? I heard the media exposure in Europe was better. Could it have been ... March Madness? I’d hate to think basketball got in the way of coal production news.
“Why not?” said the man without a Magnavox. “Think of who owns the broadcast media.”
I assure him that there is a lot of blogging going on about mountaintop removal - on both sides. It takes one mention of “Google” to tap into what he does know about the Web and its flaws. “Yes, I hear there’s a lot of misinformation about me there.” Fact is, Berry may find just as many opinions and misquotes of himself as Thoreau or Emerson - part and parcel of the information age. Just buy the books. Safer.
I have several questions about Lt. Governor Dan Mongiardo, but it pretty much came to halt with one answer from Berry. His voice is neither hostile nor opinionated. His tone is as flat and sad as the mountains.
“He’s a coal man, plain and simple. When he ran for the senate, he made that clear.”
There are a few good things happening in Washington D.C. - I offer the White House Victory Garden as an example. It seems the Obamas might need his tending advice.
“I doubt I’ll be invited to the White House,” he states. “I wouldn’t go to Washington to visit a garden. I’ll go there to protest, though.”
The Man Born to Farming
The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
Descending in the dark?
Cindy Lamb can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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