According to the U.S. Census Bureau, one half of the adult population worked on a farm in 1870. By 1900, it was a third, and then a fifth by 1950. In 2020, less than two percent of adults worked on a farm. As we moved from farms and small towns to cities and suburbs, we’ve experienced phenomenal gains in productivity and creativity. We’ve also severed ourselves from understanding and knowing the land.
Poet Jessica Gigot originally trained as a biologist. When she was in her 20s, she experienced a kind of call for understanding the land. Inspired by the local food movement, she spent several years as a farm intern in the Pacific Northwest. She eventually earned an advanced degree in horticulture. As her 2021 memoir A Little Bit of Land makes clear, Gigot wanted to understand farming, but she also wanted to know why people farmed. What was it that kept so many generations of farmers on the land and attracted so many newcomers?
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Some Tuesday Readings
How the Cultural Revolution Played Society Against Itself – Tania Branigan at Literary Hub.
Autumn Summons – poem by Talbot Hook at Society of Classical Poets.
Ocean of Coins – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.
Tolkien’s Literary Output: Fundamentally Religious and Catholic? – Holly Ordway at The Imaginative Conservative.
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