Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

I heard a talk a few weeks ago and was introduced to the work of a poet I had not yet read. The speaker bookended the talk with two poems, languid and perceptive, hinting at the topic of his talk (the notion of Self, and how it’s comprised). The poetry set a mood, loosening my usual tension at being at a professional talk, and I allowed myself to relax into the rare, unhurried state where I become inquisitive and curious and open.

 

I was reminded of poetry readings from a former life, a poetry teacher from a few lives even before that. I’m not sure I would have gotten as much out of the speaker’s presentation if it hadn’t been for the poetry. I was inspired to rekindle the poetic flame, and a few days after the talk, I searched my public library catalog and put holds on as many of the poet’s books they had. They began to come in, and off I started, eager to spend time in the murky, gauzy land of poetry. I began by scanning the table of contents of each volume, then reading first sentences, trying to find the two poems I’d heard. No such luck. No matter, I thought. I’ll just read the volumes and see what comes.

 

Some poems I read through, some I stopped after just a line or two. I wasn’t finding the phrasing or the images evoked at the presentation. I was bored. I was disappointed to encounter the strong political/environmental foundation in the poems.  I was distracted by the theme, the prolific nature of his writing, the way in which the poems came to feel like they said the same thing, over and over, and the thought that I had missed such a prolific poet which must mean that I was more out of the literary loop than I tend to think, which is ludicrous, because I’m not in a literary loop. I didn’t have a single dreamy moment, no opening revelation, no soft gauzy sensations as the words invited me elsewhere, as I didn’t feel any invitation to go anywhere.

 

I found my greatest emotional response to a two-line poem of aching simplicity, yet I can’t stop liking it:

Seventy Years

Well, anyhow, I am

not going to die young.

-Wendell Berry (2005). Given: New Poems (p. 25). Washington, DC: Shoemaker Hoard.

 

I’m not sure what this means. Have I lost the refinement of literary taste? Have I succumbed to popular culture? Have I lost the skill to sift through sparse text and find that which lies below? This assumes that I once possessed this ability, but now I wonder.

 

I had no idea this poet would have more than 40 published books, so that without a written copy of those two poems, I’d never  locate them. I slogged through six books of poetry hunting for them, but poetry shouldn’t be slogged through. I get that.

 

I broke down and contacted the speaker, who graciously copied the poems into an email, so I could stop searching. The first one, the mood-setting piece, holds up for me, despite the background noise of politicized ecology which was absent at the reading. It evokes something about the personal, reflects a universal grief over what we lose in pursuits that may ultimately fail. This one made me think that perhaps, just perhaps, my poetic soul can be revived.

 

IX

I go by a field where once

I cultivated a few poor crops.

It is now covered with young trees,

for the forest that belongs here

has come back and reclaimed its own.

And I think of all the effort

I have wasted and all the time,

and of how much joy I took

in that failed work and how much

it taught me. For in so failing

I learned something of my place,

something of myself, and now

I welcome back the trees.

— Wendell Berry (2010). Leavings: Poems (p. 122). NY: Counterpoint Press

 

I offer this invitation to a slow, diaphanous moment of personal reflection.

 

But I understand there might be some who like the short little ditty better!