Shanna 4/30/08 Exploitation & Berry

I do not understand how science, in all its glory, could not see that exploitation of the land for agriculture would one day kill the land and render it useless. As Dr. Redick spoke of in class, they (scientists) inject the land with replenishing chemicals so it can continue to be used and used. How could they not predict the destruction of the land? The answer (if there truly is one) can be found in Berry's The Unsettling of America. "The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization... the exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, hard facts..." (Berry, 8). The scientists serve institutions and are probably paid by those who want to exploit the land. Therefore, the scientists cannot afford to protect the land, they can only make it better and more efficient for the exploiters. In the long run though, we all lose. The exploiters will not be satisfied until they have every slice of the pie (or every plot of farmland) on which to wreak the havoc of machinery and chemicals. In The Likings and Loves of the Subhuman Lewis describes, "the area in which they operate should grow wider still and wider" (Lewis, 27). Contentment has never been a word to characterize the dominating and destructive nature of America. The exploiters can only think in terms of money and product.

Shanna 4/30/08 Unsettling Poison Berry

This post must begin with song lyrics. You will surely know the song. In the 60s it was sung by Melanie, and I believe the Counting Crows do the version of it that is popular today. It goes "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." The line of this song most relavent to my topic is "Farmer, farmer, put away your DDT's, I don't care about spots on my apples, leave me the birds and the bees." Wendell Berry talks about this, in essence. No one wants to be farmers anymore because it is expensive, difficult, time consuming, and uncertain. The bigwigs from big cities are taking over the farming industry and making it alot easier... for themselves. They employ heavy machinery, crop dusters, scientists, and worst of all- Chemicals. You just don't tamper with chemicals around food, it's common sense. But they do it anyway, in the name of progress, production, and business. Berry put it best in The Unsettling of America: "And it is one of the miracles of science and hygiene that the germs that used to be in our food have been replaced by poisons." A greater truth was never spoken. DDT's, hormones, steroids, whatever the hell makes chickens lay more than one egg a day. All of this is severe tampering with something that simply does not need tampering with: nature. And yet, despite the words of Berry, and so many others, nothing will be done. Americans will continue to be "poisoned." From Rationality and Narrative, Socrates tells us why. "Do not be annoyed at my telling the truth; the fact is that no man in the world will come off safe who honestly opposes either you or any other multitude" (Redick & Underwood, 402). The little guy just can't win against corporate America. Or, in the words of Berry, "throwing a rock into a frozen river does not make a ripple."

Shanna 4/30/08 In Defense of Poetry

To define a poem is not easy, but it is possible. Poetry, however, does not define. It does not attempt to tell the reader, for instance, what an apple is. That is the job of science. The job of poetry is quite the opposite. Truth: "Wilderness is so heavily freighted with meaning of a personal, symbolic, and changing kind as to resist easy definition" (Redick/Nash, 1). The realm of the poet is the personal, symbolic, and changing. The poet attempts to coax the reader into tasting an apple, or biting an apple, or even believing he is an apple; it does not define an apple because that is boring, scientific, and everyone knows what an apple is. Science states the obvious, poetry states the hidden. In A Continuous Harmony, Berry uses the poetry of Wallace Stevens: It was when I said / "There is no such thing as truth," / That the grapes seemed fatter. / The fox ran out of his hole. The only truth Stevens could find was found in nature. That is interesting because most would say science, in all its endeavors, harbors what little truth can be found in this world. Like Stevens, I think much the opposite. The only truth cannot be defined. The only truth is nature and its description, experience, and vibrance.

Shanna 4/30/08 The Beautifully Authentic in Berry and Lewis

Poets are often characterized as dreamers, unrealistc, or even "Bohemian." This could be true, but poets are also in touch with their surroundings. They attempt to find deeper meaning in the ordinary, and beauty in the natural. It could be said that poets are spiritual people. Wendell Berry in A Continuous Harmony, when describing nature poets, applies "the presence of mystery or divinity in the world, or even to the attitudes of wonder or awe or humility before the works of creation" (Berry, 3). I think it is safe to say that most poets usually love the natural world. From my own perspective, I write poetry, and I enjoy nature. Poets do have a tendency to only use the bright and sunny side of nature, the parts they find beautiful. According to C.S. Lewis in Likings and Loves for the Subhuman, these poets "lose what really matters--the moods of time and season, the spirit of the place" (Lewis, 18). But nature poets, on the other hand, do not have a problem with this distraction. They wish to poeticize all aspects of nature, so to say, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Berry includes the words of Denise Levertov, "a religious devotion to the truth, to the splendor of the authentic..." (Berry, 2). To be authentic, a poet must record the organic, the untampered with, the natural, without regard to what emotion they wish to express, or uncover in their readers. Nature poets, therefore, cannot add or take away, or embellish, or detract. What is seen must be put into words. What is felt must not get in the way of their poetry.

Shanna 4/30/08 Imaginary Wilderness

In this post I will compare the hiker to the writer. Each are free, each rely, each know not what lies ahead. In The Writing Life, Dillard says writing a book is "life at its most free" (Dillard, 555). The hiker is also free to hike where he wants, when he wants to, regardless of circumstance. However, the hiker must rely on signs in nature to warn him of possible dangers ahead. The writer must rely on imagination, ink, and whatever they learned as far as style, grammar, etc.
In Wilderness as Axis Mundi, Redick says "A wilderness [is] ... an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain" (Redick, 2). The world of imagination is much like the wilderness then. The imagination is somewhere "untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor who does not remain," though many wish they could. Like the wild, the imagination is different upon every encounter. Perilous at times, imagination can lead to fearful places, ones which can be much more frightening than reality. What lies just over that hill, just beyond that forrest, can be as much of a mystery as what will fill the pages of a blank book. What the end of a journey will hold, or the end of a book, must be left entirely to the imagination.

Shanna 4/30/08 The Liminality of Wilderness, Especially When Lost

The natural world is often the baffling focus of science which tries to categorize it, and systematically tame the wild. This is mere amusing irony to a poetry major who laughs at science everytime nature tosses a kink in its attempts of organization. In his essay Wilderness as Axis Mundi, Redick says "Wilderness becomes symbolically active as a liminal place, a place of ambiguity, a bewildering place where nothing is as it seems because there are no points of orientation," (Redick, 5). Anyone who has been lost in the woods knows this feeling all too well. One path looks familiar, but darkness casts uncertainty on the decision of which path is the correct way home. Nothing is as it seems, or seemed to be in the light of day. One wrong turn leads to another, and soon you're tripping down railroad tracks hoping for the least glimpse of civilization. Dillard describes this overwhelming feeling in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. "What I see sets me swaying. Size and distance and the sudden swelling of meanings confuse me, bowl me over," (Dillard, 29). The size of the forrest, when coupled with the distance you have walked cause confusion. Meaning is tantamount as it hangs on every turn taken. Meaning: the cause for walking in the first place. Wilderness as a place of liminality is made painfully clear while traversing unknown territory, feeling tiny and insignificant when compared to the trees which reign in their natural homes. Paths are created in accordance with the trees, but none point to home. The wind may whisper through them, but the language is foreign and unparalled in wonder.

Shanna 4/30/08 The Voice of the Wild

Redick says in his essay Wilderness as Axis Mundi, "The land is acknowledged as having intrinsic value and freed from a system that does not permit it voice" (Redick, 11). Though the Appalachian Trail is the topic of discussion in this essay, wilderness has been granted voice throughout history, and on a worldwide scale. Gary Snyder refers to the voice of the wild in his chapter Good, Wild, Sacred. Snyder talks about visiting the back country of Australia. In Australian lore, dreaming places are those which are ideal for the creatures that inhabit them, and are sometimes thought to be the places of origination for those creatures. He mentions the dreaming place of the green parrot. Wilderness is not only permitted a voice, it tells a story. "The stories will tell of the tracks of the ancestors going across the landscape and stopping at that dreaming place" (Snyder, 85). These stories define the course of Australian lore, and protect the land which provided the inspiration for those stories. These sites are considered sacred, not just to the the natives who value them, but to the creatures who call them home. The sacredness of land from a parrot's point of view holds value. The creature need not be endangered for its home to be protected, a notion unheard of to European inhabitants of America.

Shanna 4/15/08 The Place, the Region, and the Commons

Snyder says, "few people today can announce themselves as someone from somewhere" (Snyder 25). This is very true and extremely sad. Being a native of Yorktown may not be extraordinary, but it has been my home for twenty years. Many "lifers" as I call myself, are more than ready to escape this smallish town and see the wide world. I certainly desire to travel and explore, but I believe I will always return to the heart of the home, what Snyder calls the hearth. The forest surrounding my house may be an illusion of sorts, since it is only half a mile from a major highway, but it has captured my heart nonetheless. When Lewis spoke of the two loves in his essay "Likings and Loves for the Subhuman," he mentioned Need-pleasures and Pleasures of Appreciation. I dare to claim both to describe my feelings toward Country Lane, my home. Lewis says Need pleasures "are not hated once we have had them, but they certainly 'die on us' with extraordinary abruptness..." (Lewis, 13). I may not have a physical need for the flora and fauna around my home, but it sure feels good to return after being away. Once I am there and sipping tea in my own backyard, I am contented; after a while I begin to take home for granted again, not understanding how I'll miss it so much if I leave. Of Appreciation pleasures Lewis says they have "not merely gratified our senses in fact but claimed our appreciation by right" (Lewis, 13). People do not realize how large Yorktown is compared to how microscopic it use to be. From a rural, country town considered the "boonies" to one of the top ranking places to live in America, Yorktown has grown significantly. Throughout all of this growth and development, Country lane has been left virtually untouched. This is how it claims my appreciation by right. Being surrounded by bustling commerce and every assorted military base has not effected Country Lane at all. It remains private property, unpaved, and shrouded in watershed not fit for building. A snapshot of times gone by when kids could rollerskate on 17, and the only hangout was the 7/11. It is still the home of several endangered species of newt, toad, and the luckless treehugger worried sick about inevitable "progress."