When we found our way to the class in the basement on Wednesday afternoon, our teacher was nowhere in sight. I turned to the boy next to me. "I bet he's going to make some grand entrance," I whispered. We'd all been told that this teacher is pretty out there, but never received a further explanation.
And then he walked in, casually. If we hadn't been expecting him, we wouldn't have even noticed him. "Hi, guys." He was calm, unlike all of our other antsy and overeager teachers of earlier in the day. "So, there's a poem under your desks. Pick it up. Let's read it, shall we?"
He didn't start with roll call or anything, we just dove right in. The poem was by Wendell Berry, and I've copy-pasted it below for your reading pleasure:
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
By Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
"Christ! Never sleeping in this class again," a girl behind me muttered.
"Now that the class has been resurrected," the teacher said, stifling a chuckle, "shall we discuss? Pick your favorite line and tell me why you like it."
The next thirty minutes spun into conversations about corporate America, women's rights, and (from yours truly) how decisions that differ from the majority and are free of influence from the "generals and politicos" are what make our lives a) worth living, b) worth remembering and c) ours.
I've been waiting for an English class like this. Don't get me wrong, I've had other great English teachers (and I'm not just saying that because at least one of my former teachers reads this blog, I mean it), and that's probably one of the key reasons I love English as opposed to, say, math. But to avoid all of the formal stuff (we're still waiting on a syllabus and it's the second week) and just go straight into the heart of the matter of literature? It's about time.
~D
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