Vision of Home: Key Concepts

Whitman and Berry: Road to a Vision of Home

• Whitman emphasizes outward travel; "Not I, not anyone else can travel that road for you; You must travel it for yourself" (Section 46)
• Berry emphasizes inward reflection and stillness; mirror placid stillness of trees
• Implication: Two routes to a "vision of home": outward exploration vs inward attentiveness

Vision of Home: Core Qualities

• First lesson: patience
• Second: watchfulness
• Third: attentiveness to simple details of familiar place

The Stay Home Poem (1980) and Theme

• Poem excerpt:
  • "Stay Home I will wait here in the fields to see how well the rain brings on the grass."
  • "In the labor of the fields longer than a man’s life I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too."
  • "I will be standing in the woods where the old trees move only with the wind and then with gravity."
  • "In the stillness of the trees I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too."
• Theme: home as rooted in stillness of nature; invitation to observe rather than travel
• Attribution: 1980, Carol Polsgrove

Carol Polsgrove: Biography and Work

• Born 1945, Louisville, Kentucky; raised in Nigeria by missionary parents
• Education: Wake Forest University (English major); PhD in English, University of Louisville, 1973
• Teaching: Maysville Community College; Eastern Kentucky University; San Jose State University; California State University at Hayward
• Current role: Associate professor of journalism at Indiana University; teaches history and practice of literary journalism
• Editorial work: The Progressive; Mother Jones
• Publications: articles in Atlantic Monthly, Oceans, Environment, Sierra
• Notable book: 1995 It Wasn’t Pretty, Folks, But Didn’t We Have Fun? Esquire in the Sixties