Outside Reading, Laura Boleyn

For one of my outside reading assignments, I chose Wendell Berry’s “The Salad” from a collection of his poems in A Part. The poem reflects Berry’s life and appreciation of farming. The poem begins with people, I interpret it to be a family, sitting down to gather a salad, called the “season’s fruit.” The speaker picks the herbs and plants alone by hand, without the use of a plow. This is connects to the chapter in Making Nature Sacred that discusses Berry’s views. In the book, Gatta mentions that Berry was against using machinery in farming. The poem continues with the descriptions of many herbs and plants, and how they are healthy and helpful to the body. The poem then shifts to the speaker talking about nobility and higher people who do not work for the food they eat and who do not know what it is to work the land. They eat fancy, expensive food and live on “credit and good luck.” Berry calls them “parasites” and the speaker says he is familiar with this lifestyle and this food but does not want to be any part of it. Instead, the speaker wants to experience the land and food that God has given him and calls the land and “uncertain good.” The speaker seems to stress the importance of living and dying at home, settled with care. The speaker does not hold nobility or those who do not appreciate the land and farmers very highly and does not take them seriously. He calls them ignorant. He also seems to believe that a healthy hunger is better than many costly foods flooding the table. These people are picky and unappreciative. The poem ends with the speaker stressing the importance of caring for the human soul and of “country people, free of ambition’s grief.” These country people have happiness in things that do not need to impress other people. They are happy with the little things and do not need to be spoiled to appreciate God and live longer lives because of it.
This poem really helped to understand chapter 9 of Making Nature Sacred that explained and described the views of Wendell Berry. One can see in a different way, one that isn’t necessarily analytical, the views that Berry believes and expresses. The poem was an interesting way to see Berry’s views in a kind of example. Reading his views in the book also helped to understand the poem. By reading both, I have a fair amount of understanding of that section of the book and Wendell Berry. I can also see the change in nature poetry that Gatta was speaking of in his book. The poem did have a feeling of anger and frustration, but he was still able to with his faith. One can also see themes of Berry discussed in the novel, such as the presence of pastoral descriptions and themes and the Agrarian message.