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The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life: Essays and Poems
Now in paperback, and with a new preface, Julia Kasdorf's The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life investigates the often difficult relationships among writing, community, and belief. In the ten essays collected here―presented in relation to poetry as well as photographs and other illustrations―Kasdorf draws on family stories, historical documentation, and her own experiences to examine aspects of Mennonite life and explore a variety of themes, including gender, community, silence, place, identity, and the body. In each of the four sections of The Body and the Book, Kasdorf tries to reconcile her profession with the practical wisdom and habitual silence of her Mennonite heritage. In the first section, she delves into the old Amish settlement where her parents grew up and its lasting influence on her. The second section focuses on the obstacles she faces as a woman writing from a traditional and ethnic religious background. In each essay in the third section, she uses a historical episode as an occasion to explore the complex interconnections among voice, body, gender, and religious tradition. And in the last section, she demonstrates how writing enables an author to integrate disparate experiences and memories. Even as she strives to create herself as an individual, she cannot fully separate from the Mennonite heritage that has shaped her.
- GenresMemoir
230 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 2009
26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 12, 2013
I'm not sure why I took so long to read this book. Since it is a collection of essays and poems, I had read pieces of it in other places. But last month I decided to read it from beginning to end.
In the process, I recognized that Julia Spicher Kasdorf is to U.S. Mennonite writers what Emerson was to American poetry. Not only did she break through layers and layers of resistance to voice in her own poems, she has also offered theoretical, even theological, frameworks that call forth the work of a new generation.
Not only will other young poets rise up to call her blessed, or to defy her (both, of course, pay tribute), but I foresee her influence in the flowering in the genre that has captivated me in the last four years, memoir.
The Body and the Book itself is a form of memoir. Each essay and poem brings the reader a little closer to the essential facts of the author's life. There are pictures from her childhood, such as one with her mother, that will resonate with those who know her poetry ("What I Learned from My Mother").
The "back stories" of poems from the Big Valley, where Julia's Amish relatives lived, and where she visited each year as a child, also come into focus, again shedding light on many poems. A suburban kid during the school year without a Mennonite context, young Julia found stories told by conservative relatives fascinating, even if she didn't live inside their world. Later, she would travel between Brooklyn and Central Pennsylvania. She explains, "I liked being able to think in the free space between places, . . ."
The most wrenching story of all, the concluding essay, published in 2000, tells the story of Julia's experiences of being sexually abused by a neighbor. "It's just my body" became a way to survive the experience and to keep it at a distance. She removes the curtain of mystery surrounding some of her poems and explains why she is captured by the idea of trauma. Personal and historical associations intersect in this honest, piercing essay. I will never read "First Bird," the poem commissioned by the English department of Goshen College for my inauguration as president there, the same way again. The poem concludes, "notes, once forced/into her tiny throat,/ come out this dawn as song."
As the beneficiary of the way Julia has taken the suffering imposed on her own body and there found solidarity with the suffering of others, I rise up this dawn to sing a song of gratitude to her.
I deliberately chose not to read this book while I wrote my memoir, but as I did so right after finishing, I blushed. I realized that I owe a number of phrases in my book and maybe one of my stories, to Julia's influence. Though my words were unconsciously imitative, I hear Nick Lindsay's voice thundering "Don't borrow. Steal!"
If I could steal anything from this book, it would be these words: “We seek to create our selves as voices engaged in the conversational stream, and thereby we invite others to come into ‘voice’ by writing, and, yes, by making more books.”
In the process, I recognized that Julia Spicher Kasdorf is to U.S. Mennonite writers what Emerson was to American poetry. Not only did she break through layers and layers of resistance to voice in her own poems, she has also offered theoretical, even theological, frameworks that call forth the work of a new generation.
Not only will other young poets rise up to call her blessed, or to defy her (both, of course, pay tribute), but I foresee her influence in the flowering in the genre that has captivated me in the last four years, memoir.
The Body and the Book itself is a form of memoir. Each essay and poem brings the reader a little closer to the essential facts of the author's life. There are pictures from her childhood, such as one with her mother, that will resonate with those who know her poetry ("What I Learned from My Mother").
The "back stories" of poems from the Big Valley, where Julia's Amish relatives lived, and where she visited each year as a child, also come into focus, again shedding light on many poems. A suburban kid during the school year without a Mennonite context, young Julia found stories told by conservative relatives fascinating, even if she didn't live inside their world. Later, she would travel between Brooklyn and Central Pennsylvania. She explains, "I liked being able to think in the free space between places, . . ."
The most wrenching story of all, the concluding essay, published in 2000, tells the story of Julia's experiences of being sexually abused by a neighbor. "It's just my body" became a way to survive the experience and to keep it at a distance. She removes the curtain of mystery surrounding some of her poems and explains why she is captured by the idea of trauma. Personal and historical associations intersect in this honest, piercing essay. I will never read "First Bird," the poem commissioned by the English department of Goshen College for my inauguration as president there, the same way again. The poem concludes, "notes, once forced/into her tiny throat,/ come out this dawn as song."
As the beneficiary of the way Julia has taken the suffering imposed on her own body and there found solidarity with the suffering of others, I rise up this dawn to sing a song of gratitude to her.
I deliberately chose not to read this book while I wrote my memoir, but as I did so right after finishing, I blushed. I realized that I owe a number of phrases in my book and maybe one of my stories, to Julia's influence. Though my words were unconsciously imitative, I hear Nick Lindsay's voice thundering "Don't borrow. Steal!"
If I could steal anything from this book, it would be these words: “We seek to create our selves as voices engaged in the conversational stream, and thereby we invite others to come into ‘voice’ by writing, and, yes, by making more books.”
February 18, 2016
Reading this was a bit like I imagine a historical therapy session might be. Kasdorf’s essays reflect on the back stories of her poems, the creative process, her relationship to her family and community of origin, and that sometimes strange group of people called Mennonites. Kasdorf’s writings prompted lots of memories, thoughts, and reflections, responses I hope she would appreciate from her readers.
For someone like me, a Mennonite whose family moved every 4-5 years in and out of Mennonite communities in Iowa, it was easy to identify with being part of, yet different, of easily fitting in because of my name and lineage, yet always feeling I wasn’t quite normal. Being the only family in the “freindschaft” who had a television made us popular whenever the Hawkeye games were aired, but not so much at other times. Living in Philadelphia and being part of the Germantown Mennonite group referred to briefly by Kasdorf, was life changing, yet now back in the Kalona area it is not something easily talked about. Kasdorf gives voice to these thoughts and feelings but like most writers I appreciate, she asks more questions than she answers.
For someone like me, a Mennonite whose family moved every 4-5 years in and out of Mennonite communities in Iowa, it was easy to identify with being part of, yet different, of easily fitting in because of my name and lineage, yet always feeling I wasn’t quite normal. Being the only family in the “freindschaft” who had a television made us popular whenever the Hawkeye games were aired, but not so much at other times. Living in Philadelphia and being part of the Germantown Mennonite group referred to briefly by Kasdorf, was life changing, yet now back in the Kalona area it is not something easily talked about. Kasdorf gives voice to these thoughts and feelings but like most writers I appreciate, she asks more questions than she answers.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews