In Praise of Fertile Land: anthology benefits the Farmland Fund

Anthology of poetry, parable and story edited by Claudia Mauro celebrates farmland, independent farmers and the food they provide.

All proceeds from the first thousand copies benefit the Farmland Fund. Whit Press will also donate all royalties from the rest of the edition.

Available for $12.95 in all PCC Natural Markets

Selected poems

"The man born to farming"
"Girl on a Tractor"
"Primary Lessons in Political Economy"
"Soybeans"
"Ox Cart Man"

Whit Press will provide copies free of charge to all King County libraries and to selected schools.

This generosity is possible thanks to support from the King County Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, The Brenneman-Jaech Foundation, The Seattle Foundation and individual contributors.

Authors include:

The ancients Basho, Issa and Virgil
Literary icons e e cummings, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Patrick Kavanagh, Federico Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Maria Rainier Rilke, Dylan Thomas and William Butler Yeats
Northwest masters Denise Levertov, Theodore Roethke and William Stafford
And contemporary writers Wendell Berry, Lucille Clifton, Alicia Gaspar De Alba, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Peter Fallon, Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, Donald Hall, Joy Harjo, Seamus Heaney, Linda Hogan, Yoshiro Ishihara, Galwell Kinnell, Amitava Kumar, Maxine Kumin, Li-Young Lee, Naomi Shihab Nye, Marge Piercy, Ntozake Shange and Mary TallMountain.

The book's preface reminds readers that, "Most of the surface of our planet is seawater, ice, rock, desert and forest. A very small proportion can support the growing of food. In Praise of Fertile Land educates, inspires and spurs us to protect these lands for the sake of our survival."

Given current local development prices, the purchase of each copy will save about the same amout of farmland as the size of the book.

The man born to farming

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
descending in the dark?

— WENDELL BERRY

Girl on a Tractor

I knew the names of all the cows before
I knew my alphabet, but no matter the
subject, I had mastery of it, and when
it came time to help in the fields, I
learned to drive a tractor at just the right
speed, so that two men, walking
on either side of the moving wagon,
could each lift a bale, walk towards
the steadily arriving platform and
simultaneously hoist the hay onto
the rack, walk to the next bale, lift,
turn, and find me there, exactly where
I should be, my hand on the throttle,
carefully measuring out the pace.

— JOYCE SUTHPEN

Primary Lessons in Political Economy

For every ten bushels of paddy she harvests
the landless laborer takes home one.

This woman, whose name is Hiria, would have to starve
for three days to buy a liter of milk.

If she were to check her hunger and not eat
for a month, she could buy a book of poems.

And if Hiria, who works endlessly, could starve
endlessly, in ten years she could buy that piece

Of land on which during short winter evenings
the landlord's son plays badminton.

— AMITAVA KUMAR

Soybeans

The October air was warm and musky, blowing
Over brown fields, heavy with the fragrance
Of freshly combined beans, the breath of harvest.

He was pulling a truckload onto the scales
At the elevator near the rail siding north of town
When a big Cadillac drove up. A man stepped out,
Wearing a three-piece suit and a gold pinky ring.
The man said he had just invested a hundred grand
In soybeans and wanted to see what they looked like.

The farmer stared at the man and was quiet, reaching
For the tobacco in the rear pocket of his jeans,
Where he wore his only ring, a threadbare circle rubbed
By working cans of dip and long hours on the backside
Of a hundred acre run. He scooped up a handful
Of small white beans, the pearls of the prairie saying:

Soybeans look like a foot of water on the field in April
When you're ready to plant and can't get in;
Like three kids at the kitchen table
Eating macaroni and cheese five nights in a row;
Or like a broken part on the combine when
Your credit with the implement dealer is nearly tapped.

Soybeans look like prayers bouncing off the ceiling
When prices on the Chicago grain market start to drop;
Or like your old man's tears when you tell him
How much the land might bring for subdivisions.
Soybeans look like the first good night of sleep in weeks
When you unload at the elevator and the kids get Christmas.

He spat a little juice on the tire of the Cadillac,
Laughing despite himself and saying to the man:
Now maybe you can tell me what a hundred grand looks like.

— THOMAS ALAN ORR

Ox Cart Man

In October of the year,
he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,
counting the seed, counting
the cellar's portion out,
and bags the rest on the cart's floor.

He packs wool sheared in April, honey
in combs, linen, leather
tanned from deerhide,
and vinegar in a barrel
hooped by hand at the forge's fire.

He walks by ox's head, ten days
to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,
flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose
feathers, yarn.

When the cart is empty he sells the cart.
When the cart is sold he sells the ox,
harness and yoke, and walks
home, his pockets heavy
with the year's coin for salt and taxes,

and at home by fire's light in November cold
stitches new harness
for next year's ox in the barn,
and carves the yoke, and saws planks
building the cart again.

— Donald Hall

From the anthology In Praise of Fertile Land (Whit Press, 2003), winner of the 2003 Bumbershoot Literary Award, available for $9.95 at PCC Natural Markets. All proceeds benefit the Farmland Fund.