Reading, Writing, Rules, and Reason

Was it a year ago already that a friend told me about an unlikely book she was reading and finding fascinating? I describe the book as unlikely because if anyone were taking bets on either of us reading it, he would have had to assign pretty long odds. I’m not sure how the book made its way into her hands, but soon enough, The Lost Language of Plants was in mine, too. It didn’t stay there long, not because I didn’t like it, but because I liked it too much and felt it needed a great deal of attention, which at the time, I was not prepared to invest. I now own four books by Stephen Harrod Buhner, and like The Lost Language . . . , Ensouling Language: On the Art of Nonfiction and the Writer’s Life is proving to be full of words that need savoring.

Maybe ironically (and for some writing purists, mistakenly), the book’s first words are not Buhner’s own (if you don’t count the dedication, and I don’t).

The still small voice of reason is what I keep trying to protect in myself and cherish in others. Don’t tell me what forensic speakers have forced on you. Relax, forget them. Tell me quietly, here in this room, what you really think.

—William Stafford

Stafford’s choice of the word “reason” is interesting, because it’s a word that’s interpreted and misinterpreted by so many. Is reason diametrically opposed to faith or imagination? I don’t think so, and I’m inclined to think that Stafford doesn’t either, but I’ve never read anything by him other than what Buhner shares, so don’t take my word for it. Maybe the question is: does it matter what Stafford thought when he wrote those words? Obviously, Buhner has found something in them that fits his purpose, and when Stafford released them into the world with the publication of the book that included them, he had to know that they were off to make their way in the world, like a fledgling from the nest, at the mercy of others.

After Stafford’s invitation, Buhner tells us what he thinks about writing, and his words are provocative:

I disapprove of most of what passes for professional nonfiction (and literary fiction) in American culture. . . . I don’t think writers should be too civilized. . . . I believe that writers must travel into the wilderness and bring back what they find, envelop it in words, and release it into the world. . . . I am also a heretic. I believe, too, that most MFA programs, rather than teaching passionate human beings how to write, teach them how to be like everyone else, that they, in fact, teach genius to be mediocre, teach the gifted to fit in, actively constrain talent in corrals made of outdated rules, grammatical fascism, envy, and general ignorance.

Now that Stafford’s and Buhner’s words have alighted in my backyard, what do I think?

Come back now and again and find out.