edited by Catherine Webster foreword by James Galvin
University of Iowa Press, 1998 Cloth: 978-0-87745-616-2 | Paper: 978-0-87745-617-9 Library of Congress Classification PN6110.F34O84 1998 Dewey Decimal Classification 808.819355
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
As a natural outgrowth from her anthology of contemporary American farm poems,Handspan of Red Earth, editor Catherine Webster has devoted herself over the past years to gathering this collection of farm poems from writers around the world. She has done her work with great energy, thoroughness, skill, and love.
Over This Soil urges us to preserve our farmlands, to increase our responsibilities of land stewardship, and to intelligently maintain the agricultural necessities of our lives. It is an important agricultural and literary document for our planet at this time.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Catherine Webster, a third-generation rancher and a teacher and poet, lives on her family-operated cattle ranch in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Her first book of poems was The Concept of Bodily Objects. She is also the editor of Handspan of Red Earth: An Anthology of American Farm Poems.
REVIEWS
“Read these poems. There is wisdom here. Wisdom says tread lightly. Feel gratitude. Revere the source. Listen to the ancient, loving conversation that, by implication, includes everything—life, death, growth, nourishment, manners, fear, frustration, love, morality, humility, wonder.”—James Galvin, foreword to Over This Soil
“The poems in Over This Soil are a poignant reminder of the critical bond between the amazing renewable natural resources of our farms and who we are as people. As goodwill ambassadors, these poems are timeless and humbling. They should be on every shelf for quick reference when the soul needs replenishing.”—Ralph Grossi, American Farmland Trust
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Foreword
Galvin,
James
Acknowledgments
I
MY MOTHER'S PEARS
My Mother's Pears, Stanley Kunitz, United States
Fruit, Gabriela Mistral, Chile
What If the World Stays Always Far Off, Linda Gregg, United States
The Pitchfork, Seamus Heaney, Ireland
The Bull-Roarer, Gerald Stern, United States
Tractor, Ted Hughes, Great Britain
De Profundis, Georg Trakl, Germany
Swineherd, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Ireland
The Lithuanian Well, Johannes Bobrowski, Germany
Someone Else's Sugarcane, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Brazil
A Leopard Lives in a Muu Tree, Jonathan Kariara, Kenya
Heavier, Pierre Reverdy, France
Wo/men, Chiqui Vicioso, Dominican Republic
Aunt Julia, Norman MacCaig, Scotland
Waterpot, Grace Nichols, Great Britain
The Earthworm, Harry Edmund Martinson, Sweden
Probably the Farmer, Laura Jensen, United States
Farmers, Kathleen Peirce, United States
The Broken Ground, Wendell Berry, United States
Between Each Song, A. R. Ammons, United States
Hunger, Kim Chi Ha, Korea
II
THE UNITED FRUIT CO.
The Right Hand of a Mexican Farmworker in Somerset County, Maryland, Martín Espada, United States
The Onion, Wislawa Szymborska, Poland
The United Fruit Co., Pablo Neruda, Chile
Hoeing, Gary Soto, United States
Farm Labourer, George Mackay Brown, Scotland
Cattle, Kijima Hajime, Japan
Sugar Cane, Faustin Charles, Great Britain
The Sugar Slave, Thylias Moss, United States
Summer, Binyo Ivanov, Bulgaria
They Plow, Giovanni Pascoli, Italy
Farmer, Jack Myers, United States
Pears, Mary Swander, United States
West Texas, Langston Hughes, United States
Ploughman, John Tripp, Wales
Muddy Road to Adam Johnson's House, John Burnside, Scotland
Winter Journey, Uwe-Michael Gutzschhahn, Germany
The Old Vineyard, Leonardo Sinisgalli, Italy
A Pair of Shoes by the Field's Edge, Wang Xiani, China
At a Potato Digging, Seamus Heaney, Ireland
Faces at the First Farmworkers' Constitutional Convention, José Montoya, United States
The Hill Farmer Speaks, R. S. Thomas, Wales
Legacy, Márton Kalász, Hungary
III
IN A FALLOW FIELD IN THE NORTH
Conversation at Midnight, Adelina Adalis, Russia
Red Beard, Nuala Archer, Panama
In a Fallow Field in the North Is a Plow That Hurts Me, Duo Duo, China
Depths of Fields, Luis Cabalquinto, Philippines
The Spring, P. J. Kavanagh, Ireland
Downstream, Linda Hussa, United States
July 2nd, 1916, Phoebe Hesketh, Great Britain
R. F. D. Mailbox, S. A. Walsh, United States
Fat of the Land, Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez, United States
In Peru, the Quechans Have a Thousand Words for Potato, Ray González, Peru
Stomping the Beaver Palace, Roger Weingarten, United States
Quail and His Role in Agriculture, Ray A. Young Bear, United States
Sprout, Rumiko Kōra, Japan
The Dead Calf, Richard Jones, United States
Pastoral, Ronald Wallace, United States
November Calf, Jane Kenyon, United States
Baobab Fruit Picking (or Development in Monkey Bay), Jack Mapanje, South Africa
IV
THE REMOVAL OF OUR VILLAGE
The Woodcut on the Cover of Robert Frost's Complete Poems, Hayden Carruth, United States
Afraid of the Countryside, Sakutaro Hagiwara, Japan
And You, Vanya …, Yury Odarchenko, Russia
Pastoral, Annie Dillard, United States
The Funeral, Norman Dubie, United States
The Removal of Our Village, KwaBhanya, Mbuyiseni Mtshali, South Africa
Mississippi Mysteries, Continued, Al Young, United States
The Planting of the Blue Corn, Edgar Gabriel Silex, United States
The Green Combine, Janet Kauffman, United States
Platt River Holdout, Katy Peake, United States
Once We Were Farmers, Elsa Rediva E'der, United States
Everything Else You Can Get You Take, Robert Dana, United States
The Cucumber, Nazim Hikmet, Germany
Green Fields, W. S. Merwin, United States
Cabbages at Night, Hasegawa Ryusei, Japan
The Hen, Marvin Bell, United States
The Memory, Maya Angelou, United States
Some Grass along a Ditch Bank, Larry Levis, United States
V
TWENTY HORSES WILD
The Quality of Sprawl, Les Murray, Australia
Agriculture, James Galvin, United States
Carbuncle, Muriel Zeller, United States
Buck, Paul Zarzyski, United States
Horse-doctor, Katherine Pierpoint, Great Britain
Egg and Daughter Night, April 1951, William Matthews, United States
Appetite, Maxine Kurnin, United States
Untitled, Tomaz Salamun, Yugoslavia.
The Bogie-Wife, Kathleen Jamie, Scotland
The Barn-yard, Sheila Cussons, South Africa
Flirting with a Pig, Aleksandar Ristovic, Serbia
A Land of Drought, Maxamed Cabdille Xasan, Somalia
The Bitch, Sergey Yesenin, Russia
A Young Land Cultivation Department Technician's Recitative on Irises, Kenji Miyazawa, Japan
The Biting Insects, Galway Kinnell, United States
Washing the Grain, Yasmine Gooneratne, Australia
Farm Wife, Ellen Bryant Voigt, United States
Bread and Wine, Nina Cassian, Romania
delta farm, Dennis Schmitz, United States
Reading in Place, Mark Strand, United States
In the Pasture, Jorie Graham, United States
The Simple Truth, Philip Levine, United States
Afterword
Permissions
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
edited by Catherine Webster foreword by James Galvin
University of Iowa Press, 1998 Cloth: 978-0-87745-616-2 Paper: 978-0-87745-617-9
As a natural outgrowth from her anthology of contemporary American farm poems,Handspan of Red Earth, editor Catherine Webster has devoted herself over the past years to gathering this collection of farm poems from writers around the world. She has done her work with great energy, thoroughness, skill, and love.
Over This Soil urges us to preserve our farmlands, to increase our responsibilities of land stewardship, and to intelligently maintain the agricultural necessities of our lives. It is an important agricultural and literary document for our planet at this time.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Catherine Webster, a third-generation rancher and a teacher and poet, lives on her family-operated cattle ranch in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Her first book of poems was The Concept of Bodily Objects. She is also the editor of Handspan of Red Earth: An Anthology of American Farm Poems.
REVIEWS
“Read these poems. There is wisdom here. Wisdom says tread lightly. Feel gratitude. Revere the source. Listen to the ancient, loving conversation that, by implication, includes everything—life, death, growth, nourishment, manners, fear, frustration, love, morality, humility, wonder.”—James Galvin, foreword to Over This Soil
“The poems in Over This Soil are a poignant reminder of the critical bond between the amazing renewable natural resources of our farms and who we are as people. As goodwill ambassadors, these poems are timeless and humbling. They should be on every shelf for quick reference when the soul needs replenishing.”—Ralph Grossi, American Farmland Trust
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Foreword
Galvin,
James
Acknowledgments
I
MY MOTHER'S PEARS
My Mother's Pears, Stanley Kunitz, United States
Fruit, Gabriela Mistral, Chile
What If the World Stays Always Far Off, Linda Gregg, United States
The Pitchfork, Seamus Heaney, Ireland
The Bull-Roarer, Gerald Stern, United States
Tractor, Ted Hughes, Great Britain
De Profundis, Georg Trakl, Germany
Swineherd, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Ireland
The Lithuanian Well, Johannes Bobrowski, Germany
Someone Else's Sugarcane, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Brazil
A Leopard Lives in a Muu Tree, Jonathan Kariara, Kenya
Heavier, Pierre Reverdy, France
Wo/men, Chiqui Vicioso, Dominican Republic
Aunt Julia, Norman MacCaig, Scotland
Waterpot, Grace Nichols, Great Britain
The Earthworm, Harry Edmund Martinson, Sweden
Probably the Farmer, Laura Jensen, United States
Farmers, Kathleen Peirce, United States
The Broken Ground, Wendell Berry, United States
Between Each Song, A. R. Ammons, United States
Hunger, Kim Chi Ha, Korea
II
THE UNITED FRUIT CO.
The Right Hand of a Mexican Farmworker in Somerset County, Maryland, Martín Espada, United States
The Onion, Wislawa Szymborska, Poland
The United Fruit Co., Pablo Neruda, Chile
Hoeing, Gary Soto, United States
Farm Labourer, George Mackay Brown, Scotland
Cattle, Kijima Hajime, Japan
Sugar Cane, Faustin Charles, Great Britain
The Sugar Slave, Thylias Moss, United States
Summer, Binyo Ivanov, Bulgaria
They Plow, Giovanni Pascoli, Italy
Farmer, Jack Myers, United States
Pears, Mary Swander, United States
West Texas, Langston Hughes, United States
Ploughman, John Tripp, Wales
Muddy Road to Adam Johnson's House, John Burnside, Scotland
Winter Journey, Uwe-Michael Gutzschhahn, Germany
The Old Vineyard, Leonardo Sinisgalli, Italy
A Pair of Shoes by the Field's Edge, Wang Xiani, China
At a Potato Digging, Seamus Heaney, Ireland
Faces at the First Farmworkers' Constitutional Convention, José Montoya, United States
The Hill Farmer Speaks, R. S. Thomas, Wales
Legacy, Márton Kalász, Hungary
III
IN A FALLOW FIELD IN THE NORTH
Conversation at Midnight, Adelina Adalis, Russia
Red Beard, Nuala Archer, Panama
In a Fallow Field in the North Is a Plow That Hurts Me, Duo Duo, China
Depths of Fields, Luis Cabalquinto, Philippines
The Spring, P. J. Kavanagh, Ireland
Downstream, Linda Hussa, United States
July 2nd, 1916, Phoebe Hesketh, Great Britain
R. F. D. Mailbox, S. A. Walsh, United States
Fat of the Land, Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez, United States
In Peru, the Quechans Have a Thousand Words for Potato, Ray González, Peru
Stomping the Beaver Palace, Roger Weingarten, United States
Quail and His Role in Agriculture, Ray A. Young Bear, United States
Sprout, Rumiko Kōra, Japan
The Dead Calf, Richard Jones, United States
Pastoral, Ronald Wallace, United States
November Calf, Jane Kenyon, United States
Baobab Fruit Picking (or Development in Monkey Bay), Jack Mapanje, South Africa
IV
THE REMOVAL OF OUR VILLAGE
The Woodcut on the Cover of Robert Frost's Complete Poems, Hayden Carruth, United States
Afraid of the Countryside, Sakutaro Hagiwara, Japan
And You, Vanya …, Yury Odarchenko, Russia
Pastoral, Annie Dillard, United States
The Funeral, Norman Dubie, United States
The Removal of Our Village, KwaBhanya, Mbuyiseni Mtshali, South Africa
Mississippi Mysteries, Continued, Al Young, United States
The Planting of the Blue Corn, Edgar Gabriel Silex, United States
The Green Combine, Janet Kauffman, United States
Platt River Holdout, Katy Peake, United States
Once We Were Farmers, Elsa Rediva E'der, United States
Everything Else You Can Get You Take, Robert Dana, United States
The Cucumber, Nazim Hikmet, Germany
Green Fields, W. S. Merwin, United States
Cabbages at Night, Hasegawa Ryusei, Japan
The Hen, Marvin Bell, United States
The Memory, Maya Angelou, United States
Some Grass along a Ditch Bank, Larry Levis, United States
V
TWENTY HORSES WILD
The Quality of Sprawl, Les Murray, Australia
Agriculture, James Galvin, United States
Carbuncle, Muriel Zeller, United States
Buck, Paul Zarzyski, United States
Horse-doctor, Katherine Pierpoint, Great Britain
Egg and Daughter Night, April 1951, William Matthews, United States
Appetite, Maxine Kurnin, United States
Untitled, Tomaz Salamun, Yugoslavia.
The Bogie-Wife, Kathleen Jamie, Scotland
The Barn-yard, Sheila Cussons, South Africa
Flirting with a Pig, Aleksandar Ristovic, Serbia
A Land of Drought, Maxamed Cabdille Xasan, Somalia
The Bitch, Sergey Yesenin, Russia
A Young Land Cultivation Department Technician's Recitative on Irises, Kenji Miyazawa, Japan
The Biting Insects, Galway Kinnell, United States
Washing the Grain, Yasmine Gooneratne, Australia
Farm Wife, Ellen Bryant Voigt, United States
Bread and Wine, Nina Cassian, Romania
delta farm, Dennis Schmitz, United States
Reading in Place, Mark Strand, United States
In the Pasture, Jorie Graham, United States
The Simple Truth, Philip Levine, United States
Afterword
Permissions
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
