Americana

I am not a poetry person. In fact, I resisted violently every time my educators throughout my academic career attempted to force me to study it. However, I have always had a bit of a soft spot in my heart for Walt Whitman. Maybe it's because my grandfather liked him... Regardless, I love that classic sense of Americana his poems evoke. Sitting in a professor's office waiting for a conference to start, Leaves of Grass caught my eye, and I opened it up to a random page, to this passage:

I know a man, a common farmer—the father of five sons;
And in them were the fathers of sons—and in them were the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person;
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, and the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes—the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see—he was wise also;
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old—his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome;
They and his daughters loved him—all who saw him loved him;
They did not love him by allowance—they loved him with personal love;
He drank water only—the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face;
He was a frequent gunner and fisher—he sail’d his boat himself—he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner—he had fowling-pieces, presented to him by men that loved him;
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang.
You would wish long and long to be with him—you would wish to sit by him in the boat, that you and he might touch each other. This is an excerpt from the poem "I Sing the Body Electric"(lines 33-44). It is truly incredible the way Whitman manages to evoke the sense that this nameless farmer is a noble, honest, wise man worthy of admiration. He is not a hick, redneck, or hoosier, and furthermore, his identity is not defined solely by his livelihood, but at the same time, his characterization suggests that there is dignity in what he does for a living. Whitman's description also paints a portrait of Americana, you get a sense of the land, and the kind of people that live off it: strong-willed, strapping, handsome, wise, vigorous, resourceful.  I envision this man standing in a field of wheat, examining the grains and letting them drift away in the wind and then looking proudly over the land he cultivated with his own hands. A major component of the battle against Agribusiness lies in restoring the integrity of farming, especially on a smaller, more sustainable level. America was founded as a nation of farmers whether it be the Pilgrims surviving from the products of their co-ops, southern plantation owners, or the Pioneers starting anew in the fertile fields of the Midwest. We need to not only make it socially acceptable to farm for a living, but encourage it, especially in areas where it would be a viable career option. Landgrant Universities in the South and Midwest therefore need to shift their agriculture curriculum to teach a  sustainable yet still economically profitable method. Companies such as Monsanto should not be allowed to shut down farms who try to save their seeds for planting in the next season. Measures such as these can help restore the farmer to his rightful place in the social spectrum, and allow us all to view him in the light that Whitman sheds on him in "I Sing the Body Electric."