An Agrarian Poet | Episode 110 - Homeschool Made Simple

Carole Joy Seid invites listeners into the rich literary world of one her most beloved authors discussing one of her favorite books and exploring the themes that make his works stand out.

The author’s name is Wendell Berry. He is a prolific writer who has been a poet since he was a young man. Now in his mid-to-late eighties, Berry continues to be one of America’s most beloved literary voices.

Berry lives in his hometown in Kentucky, which serves as the model for the fictional town he created in his novels and short stories. He and his wife, Tanya, raised a large family and are now great-grandparents.

Over the years, Wendell Berry has received many of the most prestigious literary honors available. Yet despite his acclaim, he has remained something of a nonconformist, always walking to the beat of his own drum—a quality Carole especially admires.

As mentioned, Berry is the author of one of Carole’s favorite books of all time: Hannah Coulter.

Carole shares the following description of Berry’s literary accomplishments from the cover of a Library of America collection of the Port William novels and stories:

“For more than fifty years, in eight novels and forty-two short stories, Wendell Berry (b. 1934) has created an indelible portrait of rural America through the lens of Port William, Kentucky, one of the most fully imagined places in American literature. The river town and its environs are home to generations of Coulters, Catletts, Feltners, and other families collectively known as the Membership, women and men whose stories evoke the earthbound pleasures and spiritual richness of what Berry has called the three-dimensional life, a time before industrial agriculture, pervasive technology, and unrestrained consumerism began to unravel the deep bonds of community that once sustained small-town America.”

Wendell Berry is often considered an agrarian poet. While he is widely known for his poetry, he also champions and celebrates the agrarian life. Where many people seek to escape rural living, Berry embraces it.

In Hannah Coulter, Berry explores these themes through the character of Hannah. At one point, she reflects on how she and her husband sent their children away to college and gradually lost them as active participants in their farming community. Hannah says:

“We both wanted to send them to college because we felt we owed it to them. It just never occurred to either of us that we would lose them that way. The way of education leads away from home. That is what we learned from our children’s education. The big idea of education is the idea of a better place. Not a better place where you are because you want it to be better and have been to school and learned to make it better but a better place somewhere else. In order to move up you have got to move on. I didn’t see this at first. And for a while after I knew it, I pretended I didn’t. I didn’t want it to be true.”

Her husband, Nathan, replies, “Don’t complain. Don’t complain.”

Hannah reflects:

“In the same way he used to tell the boys, ‘Don’t cuss the weather.’ Sometimes you can say dreadful things without knowing it. Nathan understood this better than I did. Like several of his one sentence conversations, this one stuck in my head and finally changed it. The change came too late maybe but it turned my mind inside out like a sock.”

Carole finds Berry to be a brilliant writer. There are moments while reading his books that leave her astonished by the beauty of his prose. Few authors, in her opinion, write as skillfully—perhaps only someone like Jane Austen comes to mind.

The novel goes on to discuss child-rearing, contentment, and the cultivation of a meaningful life.

Listeners who have heard Carole speak about Gene Stratton-Porter may recognize similar themes. Stratton-Porter also wrote about raising children to appreciate the beauty and richness of the place where they live, rather than convincing them that all excitement and opportunity exist somewhere else. She encouraged creating homes filled with beauty, purpose, efficiency, and love—places where children genuinely want to be.

Later in the book, Hannah says:

“You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks. I’m not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

Of all the Wendell Berry books Carole has read, Hannah Coulter remains her personal favorite. While she does not consider herself an expert on Berry, she has read many of his works. Reading him, she says, is a bit like eating potato chips—you can’t stop with just one.

As readers journey through Port William and become acquainted with its residents and their relationships, they encounter what one character calls “The Membership.”

Carole loves this concept because, to her, The Membership resembles what the Body of Christ is meant to be: a community where people care for one another, watch over one another, and share life together. This is the vision Berry weaves throughout his stories of the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky.

Readers inevitably fall in love with the people who inhabit this world. Uncle Burley is one of Carole’s favorite characters. There are also multiple generations represented, including Andy Catlett, who records the stories of older community members and preserves their memories. Through these stories, Berry captures both the joys and sorrows of rural life. Farming and small-town living are not easy; they require perseverance and hard work.

Carole believes it is important for children to know that such a way of life exists and perhaps even to desire becoming part of such a community—a lifestyle that is rarely celebrated in modern culture.

She recalls growing up and meeting someone from Kansas and immediately associating the state with Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Looking back, she laughs at her own ignorance. Her point is that people raised in urban environments often fail to recognize the beauty and simplicity of rural life.

As mentioned earlier, Berry is truly an agrarian poet. He has been recognized and honored by numerous agricultural organizations and societies.

Carole was interested to learn that Berry once worked as an editor for Rodale Press but eventually lost the position because he believed his advocacy should extend to all small farmers, not only organic farmers. Berry later remarked, “I never made a good employee.” Carole understands that sentiment well. Berry is an independent thinker who follows his convictions.

Throughout much of his life, Berry also served as a college professor. He taught at institutions including the University of Kentucky and Stanford University and held various visiting positions elsewhere. He has served as a poet-in-residence at prestigious schools, yet his heart has always remained in farming.

Berry and his wife have raised sheep for most of their adult lives. They lived on the family farm and gradually acquired neighboring land, creating a beautiful farming life in Kentucky.

Carole also recommends The Port William Stories, Volume 1, a collection spanning the period from the Civil War through World War II. It includes Nathan Coulter, Andy Catlett: Early Travels, A World Lost, A Place on Earth, and numerous short stories.

One of Carole’s favorites is “A Consent,” the story of Ptolemy Proudfoot, a large and imposing farmer, and Miss Minnie, a schoolteacher. It is a charming account of their courtship and marriage.

Carole especially loves this description of Miss Minnie:

“When she was hardly more than a girl, Miss Minnie had gone away to a teacher’s college and prepared herself to teach by learning many cunning methods which she never afterward used. For Miss Minnie loved children and she loved books and she taught merely by introducing the one to the other.”

That line resonates deeply with Carole. Miss Minnie taught simply by introducing children to books.

This philosophy closely mirrors that of Charlotte Mason, who believed teachers should avoid exerting undue influence and instead place children in direct relationship with great books. Rather than turning books into assignments, Mason encouraged helping children become lifelong readers through exposure, delight, and habit.

Carole does not want to belabor the point, though she will likely discuss more of Berry’s books in future podcasts. She wholeheartedly recommends his work.

She encourages listeners to reach for a Wendell Berry book and begin reading. She returns to his books again and again because of their beauty, craftsmanship, kindness, and deep humanity. Through his characters and the world of Port William, Berry creates a place readers long to inhabit and emulate in their own lives.

Carole recalls hearing that when novelist Jan Karon traveled on book tours, readers would often tell her, “We want to live in Mitford!” Karon’s response was always the same: “Mitford is where you make it. You create your community where you are.”

That sentiment reflects one of Wendell Berry’s central messages: a love for agrarian culture, a love for community, and a love for fellowship. His work has the power to influence readers and change the way they see the world. Carole knows it has certainly changed her own life.