Julia Spicher Kasdorf at Goshen College

This weekend Julia Spicher Kasdorf visited Goshen College as the 41st S. A. Yoder Lecturer. Reading from her newly published book of poems, Poetry in America, Spicher Kasdorf read to a packed house in Rieth Recital Hall. Her audience was composed of three generations of readers--some of whom had been her professors when she was a student at Goshen, some who are her peers, and some who are the ages of her students. Laughter and thoughtful pauses punctuated the reading.

The poems evoked the characters of a rural Pennsylvania landscape, from the Cardio Kickboxing Instructor in Bellefonte to a legendary Amish grandmother killed in a buggy accident caused by a runaway horse. Kasdorf's poems are filled with a respect for the stories of others and the humanity of her subjects. The title poem of her new book evokes the solitary stranger who came to hear her read poems at a Barnes and Noble. In a gracious reversal of poet and listener, Barbara, who "had bangs and plastic glasses like Ramona the Pest," becomes the heroine of this poem. This is the generosity of Kasdorf's style--she draws the reader in and makes of her or him a poet.

Which poem drew you in?