Christal Cooper
Guest
Blogger RITA SIMS QUILLEN
*FOREWORD
from the poetry collection THE MAD FARMER’S WIFE
In the early 1980’s my husband and I were
living on a rocky hillside farm in southwestern Virginia with some cattle,
goats, chickens, and two babies while I finished my M.A. at East Tennessee
State University in Johnson City, Tennessee. That time in my life is a blur of
stress and exhaustion.
One thing I remember vividly is
discovering the poetry of Kentucky author Wendell Berry. We had studied Berry’s essays on farming, the
environment, and the economy in my graduate classes, but I was delighted to
discover a whole new side of him revealed in his poetry. He had created a brilliant, funny, clear-eyed
critic of the modern world called “The Mad Farmer,” and the voice in those
poems from that persona’s perspective was immediately familiar and
beloved.
Within days of first reading them, I
found myself writing a poem from the perspective of the Mad Farmer’s Wife—a
companion, partner, sounding board, a counterpoint.
Painting "Granny In Heaven" by Angelyn DeBord
As I wrote more poems from her
perspective, I realized she was now a permanent character who had taken up
residence in my head.
Unsure how Mr. Berry would feel about
another poet drawing so heavily from his own poetic efforts, I wrote a letter of introduction and enclosed a
couple of the poems, asking how he felt about what I was doing and would it be
okay if I published some of the poems.
He wrote back a very kind and gracious
reply, assuring me that he, too, loved the Mad Farmer and was “very glad to
finally meet his wife.”
Author Ed McClanahan, Berry’s long-time
friend and neighbor, explains in his introduction to The Mad Farmer Poems that
we would be mistaken if we misinterpret the character of The Mad Farmer as
Berry himself, or even as a spokesperson for him. He is simply one of many characters Berry has
assembled over the years for his novels and short stories.
Whatever he is, it is clear that The Mad
Farmer functions effectively as Everyman Farmer of his generation.
The Mad Farmer’s Wife and I have a
similar relationship. Of course, she
speaks out of my head, heart, and experiences. However, in my mind, she is
about twelve to fifteen years older than I, has lived a much harder life, has
done way more hard labor and farm work, and has seen more change and loss. In
short, she’s been both luckier and unluckier. She is me and definitely not me.
The Mad Farmer speaks often of his wife,
his partner, his love. She is, in fact,
central to his life there on the farm, fitting in a most traditional role.
Some modern readers may find the Mad
Farmer a bit out-of-touch, and he himself says as much in Berry’s poem “Some
Further Words” when he tells us that he’s an “old-fashioned man.”
As The Mad Farmer goes on to explain in
the same poem, modern readers may have no frame of reference for the type of
marriage that two people shared on the land in those earlier times, which was
both a business partnership and a deep bond of love, trust, and cooperation
that is uncommon today. They both fell into very traditional roles on the farm
and thought nothing of it. Berry writes:
And just as tenderly to be known
are the affections that make a woman and
a man
their household and the homeland one.
These too, though known, cannot be told
to those who do not know them and fewer
of us learn them, year by year
loves that are leaving the world
like the colors of extinct birds
like the songs of a dead language. (34)
The traditional roles and division of
labor do not bother the Mad Farmer or his wife. They would be somewhat puzzled
to be questioned about gender roles or stereotypes. They go with the flow of
nature and time, having no agenda or making no political statement at all
beyond a good harvest and doing right by the land, their animals, their
neighbors, themselves, their work and their life, doing whatever work there is
and, as Berry writes in “The Satisfactions of the Mad Farmer,” seeing that it
is “…done with more than enough knowledge/ and more than enough love/ by those
who do not have to be told. (16)”
The Quillen Farmstead in Southwestern Virginia
The Mad Farmer’s Wife has a story to
tell, some small wisdom she wants to offer the world before she goes, as
someone who has lived life at its most elemental level. In these poems she
wants us to think about the price of that life, but even more about the price
of not living that life.
Rita, far left, Rita's mother far right, Rita's Grandmother holding Rita's daughter Kelsey
Young women today certainly could teach
her a great deal about many things, the practical and the ideological, but they
could also learn from her. If nothing else, maybe she can help everyone
understand there’s only one thing that really matters when it’s all said and
done and over: love, especially the love between a man and a woman raising a
family and working the land together.
Rita's Husband's grandfather Warren Quillen with his 2nd Wife Alice and their 1st of 10 children.
As the poem “The Mad Farmer Dances” tries
to explain, everyone should consider: “The grandest of mysteries—love and its
stubbornness---/that wide velvet ribbon holding a marriage/Made of things so
tiny you could breathe them.”
The Quillen's Home today
Enjoyed your in-depth post about this fine book
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