Alas, Gary Snyder and Wendell Berry didn’t make it to Toby’s Feed Barn in Point Reyes Station, though they did make it to the Santa Rosa High School auditorium on the last Friday evening in June. The standing-room only crowd of admirers and devotees hung on their every word. And why not? How often do nationally renowned poets and cultural icons make local appearances? Not that often.
The star-struck audience stood and applauded the two writers and longtime friends before they even opened their mouths to speak. And they lined up at the end of the evening to have them autograph their new book, Distant Neighbors, which has sold locally like proverbial hot cakes. The evening felt in large part like an exercise in hero worship that bounced from the stage to the seats in the auditorium and back to the stage.
Snyder told what might be called Zen and Beat tales. Berry told a series of woodsy, folksy stories. Jack Shoemaker, their publisher at Counterpoint Press, sparked the dialogue.
Snyder’s tales drew on memories of his boyhood in the Pacific Northwest, growing up in a household of atheists and socialists. As a youth, he insisted on attending the local Lutheran Church; his parents didn’t object. Soon after a beloved heifer died, he asked the minister if the animal would go to heaven. “No,” he was told. Then and there, Snyder decided that he wouldn’t go anyplace his heifer couldn’t go.
More than a few members of the audience couldn’t stop laughing even when the two shifted the tone of the conversation and waxed serious about everything from climate change and the degradation of American democracy to the discipline of teaching and writing.
“I’ve read everything,” Snyder said, and didn’t sound like he was boasting. Indeed, he has read nearly everything and everyone from ancient Japanese poets to the latest manifestoes about ecology. “If you want to write books you have to read books,” he suggested. “If you do that you won’t keep trying to reinvent the wheel.”
Berry explained that when it comes to language he’s less troubled about the use of obscenities than he is about the abuse of the four-letter word love. In response to a question from a member of the audience who wanted the full, immediate benefit of Berry’s hard-won wisdom born of a lifetime, the Kentucky farmer and writer said, “Nothing is accomplished once and for all. It takes decades. It isn’t a matter of theory, but of observation.” He paused a moment as though searching for the right words and added, “older people said things to me when I was young that changed the landscape forever.”
Snyder echoed his sentiments. “Listen to the stories of old-timers who have been on the land a long time,” he urged. “You learn from people who tell stories about what they know.”
To a young farmer just starting to farm, Snyder said, “Be aware of the seasons, keep a record of the rainfall and the temperature. Have the right tools on hand and use them at the right time.” He has offered much the same advice since he published Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems in 1959. But his advice is no less fresh and relevant today.
Berry said that he’d first become aware of Snyder’s work on a visit to City Lights Books in San Francisco. In the basement, he picked up a copy of Riprap, turned the pages and knew instantly that he wanted to learn as much as he could about the author. Snyder remembered a time when he and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg went backpacking in the woods and encountered another group of backpackers. “We’re forest Beatniks,” Ginsberg told them.
Berry explained that he took the Bible into the woods and read it there. “Woods are wonderful places,” he said. “Reading the Bible in the woods is a different experience than reading it in church. I realized that I couldn’t explain the miracle of the woods anymore than I could explain scripture.”
Again and again the two men came back to the Bible, the woods, the wild and the wilderness. They seem to hold opposing views on those topics, but they never hammered out their differences. Perhaps that kind of precision is only of value in academia. “The wild is a territory not a part of the agency of humanity,” Snyder said. “The wild could be a strip of earth in your own backyard or it could be Yosemite. Wherever it is it takes care of itself.” Berry observed, “You can’t keep the wild out of your fields. You can’t build a fence to prevent the forest from entering your farm. Wild creatures live domestic lives.”
At times they wandered into overtly political territory. Snyder had kind words to say about Daniel Ellsberg, the Vietnam era hawk who turned into a dove and who released the Pentagon Papers. Berry sang the praises of Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents to the media more recently. He also insisted that a democratically elected government that kept vital secrets from its citizens wasn’t a genuine democracy.
All evening long, Snyder and Berry modeled civil discourse. They were polite. They listened attentively to one another, kept the conversation going and didn’t hurl barbs across the stage. They didn’t seem to be in competition with one another, either. “I’m in favor of humility,” Berry said, and sounded as though he meant it. Still, both he and Snyder were outspoken. Snyder criticized the Nature Conservancy for making deals with corporations and for hiring CEOs. “They’ve gone over to the dark side,” he said.
It would have been fun if Berry and Snyder had made it to Toby’s Feed Barn. It would have been fun to watch the show while perched on bales of hay. Still, the event at the Santa Rosa High School, sponsored by Copperfield’s Books, was deeply satisfying. The welcoming remarks by the events coordinator and the book buyer made the audience feel welcome. They also paid homage to Berry and Snyder. “They have touched the heart of place and they have brought the pulse back to us,” Copperfield’s book buyer Sheryl Cotleur said. Indeed, they set hearts beating and spirits soaring.
Jonah Raskin, a frequent visitor to Point Reyes and an occasional contributor to the Light, lives in Santa Rosa. He taught literature, law, marketing, food and farming at Sonoma State University for 30 years.