Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front—Wendell Berry

With an introduction by Matt Wheeler

In addition to being a farmer, an essayist, and the author of the beloved Port William novels and short stories, Wendell Berry is a renowned poet. Perhaps his best-known poetry is from his long-running series of Sabbath Poems, musings spiritual and otherwise, written over decades as he has taken Sunday walks on the good earth of his family farm in rural Kentucky.

The Sabbath Poems tell us much about Berry’s interior life, and largely carry a quiet, contemplative tone that gently provokes the reader or listener to consider God, time, place, and one’s role among it all.

The other side of the coin is The Mad Farmer poems. Read practically any of Berry’s myriad works and you will catch on to his prophetic calling out of the wasteful, greedy, destructive forces that have often run roughshod over rural America’s land and people. The Mad Farmer poems are where Berry most pointedly lets his angry indignation at these travesties get a full hearing, through the voice of his sometimes-alter ego, the character of The Mad Farmer.

So who is this Mad Farmer? He is demonstrative, but thoughtful. Cantankerous, but wise. Inimical, but essential. Some of his imprecations are harsh, though they come from a place of genuine care for the land and the flourishing of its people. Think “The Lorax”, but more loudly dismayed and defiant. And, well, less mustachioed. 

But all of this is tempered by a humor that is born partly from the over-the-top nature of The Mad Farmer’s declarations. And there are poignant and sagacious qualities to be found under all of the bluster. He knows that he is shouting at the hurricane of what some may call “progress” and the consequences of its carelessness, but he stands his ground nonetheless, proclaiming hard truths to anyone who will listen.

The Mad Farmer poems often tell much by their titles. Simply reading the name of the 1970 poem “The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer” conveys a guiding facet of the central figure’s character. Some of the poems have fittingly outlandish titles, like 2010’s “While Attending the Annual Convocation of Cause Theorists and BigBangists at the Local Provincial Research University, The Mad Farmer Intercedes from the Back Row”.

“Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” is arguably the flagship entry in this set of poems. The brilliance of “Manifesto” lies, in part, in the fact that it feels so little like a traditional poem. Instead, it reads like a litany of aphorisms or nuggets of wisdom - a bit like the Proverbs of the Bible. Or perhaps even more like the world-weary advice issued forth in Ecclesiastes.

The opening lines carry what seems at first blush to be an unapologetic embrace of consumerism - until it is quickly turned on its head, as though the poet is cleverly seeing if the reader is paying attention. The Mad Farmer rails against the hyper-individualist, acquisitive prevailing narrative of our modern society. The “window in your head” and ”when they want you to buy something they will call you” phrases hit close to home - prescient when published in 1973, and seeming to simply name the reality of this present day.

And he does all of this for good reason: so that he can beautifully lay out his case for what to do instead. The Mad Farmer has summarized his grievance, and he wishes to map out the way forward. His answer to the madness he sees accepted as normal all around him is to do the counterintuitive: “every day do something that won't compute”, like loving God, loving one’s neighbor, volunteering. Do what makes no sense to the marketers and pundits - instead, break free of the Matrix, do the illogically good, invest in the long-term flourishing of the soil and of humanity. These are some of the antidotes to the hurry-sickness and the money-obsession that are plain to see all around us.

The wise sayings are dispensed in such a flurry that it is worth reading “Manifesto” slowly, and multiple times. Read it aloud. Even on the first read, it’s likely that the reader will find a line or a phrase that stands out and points to a deep truth. It feels as though The Mad Farmer is not only laying out his argument to live a simple life and defy all that works against that, but is also passing along hard-won insights, even when they are contained in casings that may take time and thought to crack.

My personal favorites among the pithy lines contained in “Manifesto” are “Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts,” and “Practice resurrection”. The former can be found displayed on a message board in my office, a luminous saying that can be humorous in good times or an admonishment in moments of difficulty, but always worth remembering. It’s a reminder to me that I have a choice in how I will react to my circumstances - that God has granted each of us agency in how we live these lives we are given.

The latter is a pair of words that land with distinct gravity, concluding the poem with a bold and hopeful stroke of the pen. What could it mean to “practice resurrection”? The implications of this brief statement could warrant a long-form reflective piece of its own. There are obvious ties to the Christian Gospel, and rightfully - Berry is a Christ-follower and takes the Gospel seriously. It also sparks the hope that life as it is now, though it isn’t what it could be, can change for the better. That we can make choices that bring encouragement and life. That we can be good stewards of what we have. And that perhaps this Mad Farmer is on to something, after all.

“Manifesto” is an unconventional poem, and that fact makes it hard to categorize - perhaps even difficult to know what to do with. But Berry’s assertions here ring true, and suggest a poet who is interested in waking up his readers to the injustices of society as well as to our own complacency - and then to do something about them.

And so, I commend to you my favorite poem, Wendell Berry’s masterful “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”.

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 easy 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.

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash