Poetry Friday: Julia Kasdorf

I discovered Julia Kasdorf this week. My initial introduction came through the online class I'm taking. One of the assignments was to read Julia's poem, "What I Learned From My Mother." I liked the poem so much, I went in search of the poet, who teaches creative writing and women's studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Julia's parents grew up Mennonite, but left the community. Her first book of poetry, "Sleeping Preacher," explores the tension of living in two worlds. She was, in a sense "working out the implications of that departure in her writing."  (See her interview with Mennonot here.) The book won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. She has since won other awards, including a Pushcart Prize in 2004.

Read this interview with the poet, then listen to her read "Bat Boy, Break A Leg."



One of the things that appealed to me in her interview with Mennonot was this explanation of the relationship between pain and beauty.

Mennonot: What do you do with other people's stories of pain that they've experienced at the hands of the community, and your own stories? There's a sense in which I want the people who have caused that pain to be accountable for it, in the sense that I want them to know they either collectively or individually were part of causing that pain. But how do you do that in a way that's, I guess, loving? That's been a struggle for me. I don't want what I'm writing or doing to be about bitterness.

Kasdorf: I was really influenced in college and beyond by modernism. H.D. (the American poet Hilda Doolittle) especially. For a long time I just wanted to make beautiful objects, crystal clear. I believed you could find the right word. I sort of trivialize it now, but it was really good discipline to believe in all that. There's still a lot of that in me. I want to make beautiful things. So for me, the answer to your question is to take that pain and to make it beautiful. That's what transforms it into poetry.

So now, back to the class assignment.We were to read  "What I Learned From My Mother" and then free write, pen not leaving paper for twenty minutes using this as the jump off line: I learned from my mother how to...

This was a tough assignment for me. Many of you know that my relationship with my mother has not been an easy one. And in November she went into a nursing home for permanent care. The adjustment period has been difficult, to say the least. One of the things the online class has allowed me to do is use my writing to wrestle through the rising tension in my own struggle with this. 

Here is Julia's beautiful poem.

What I Learned From My Mother 

Julia Kasdorf 

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

And here is what came from my free write, my own attempt to make something beautiful from a painful relationship.

What My Mother Taught Me

She taught me gin rummy and badminton,

to make Chef Boyardee Pizza

with a crust ten-cent thin.

She taught me to make my bed before

I was out of it, to clean my room,

that homework came first.

She taught me to cook. I taught her to sew.

She taught me to practice

piano, to listen, and not get caught talking.

She taught me justice, but without

mercy that makes it redemptive.

She taught me to be truthful, but

she meant her version, and it was seldom spoken

in love. She taught me that getting

your own way hurts

the ones close to you. She taught me

silence is not golden when it shuts

people out. She taught me that touch

is tender and sweet, not tenuous. She taught me

family comes first. Mine. Not hers.

She taught me to give, but gifts without

grace make one feel bought.

She taught me that kindness is more

important than the appearance

of kindness. She taught me when bitterness

takes root, you can lose your best friend.

She taught me God’s love--

 without it I may not  have survived hers.

She taught me to be a mother. Sometimes knowing

what not to do is the best lesson.

Today I sat beside her bed and read.

I held her withered hand in mine and kissed

her wrinkled brow, because I know

what it means to need those things.

She taught me that.

© Doraine Bennett

Jone hosts the Roundup at Check It Out  where you'll find lots of beautiful poetry to enjoy.