My senior seminar class is reading a book by Julia Kasdorf titled The Body and the Book. While reading the essay for this week's class, I found it really correlated with Mennonite Literature too. In Julia's essay, "Preacher's Striptease," she discusses Jeff Gundy's poem, "How to Write the New Mennonite Poem." She calls the poem a "spoof" that "pokes fun at the overly self-conscious "new Mennonite" poet who has internalized society's desire for cultural stereotypes and who clutters his poems with signs of authenticity... at the same time, the writer projects the correct Mennonite attitude that is a combination of humility and respect for one's tradition." I was surprised by Kasdorf's interpretation of Gundy's poem. In class we had talked about Gundy's poem as a response to Kasdorf's poem "Mennonites." Kasdorf seems to think, rather, that Gundy's poem is a spoof on "new Mennonite" poets like David Wright, although David's "A New Mennonite Replies to Julia Kasdorf" was written after Gundy's poem and only mentions these "stereotypes" when he is expressing how he does not fit them. Later in the essay, Kasdorf discusses Wright's poem also, and assesses it as a response to Gundy's poem, "offering an alternative, authentic image of the "new Mennonite"- as opposed to Gundy's parodic "new Mennonite poem."
I thought it was very interesting to hear the author of one of the poems in this discussion give her opinion. I remembered how our professor, Ann, said that Kasdorf and Gundy are good friends and I wonder what their conversations about each other's work is like, especially given that Gundy's poem is a response to Kasdorf's.
Kim, it would be fun to ask Julia Spicher Kasdorf about this when she comes to visit your senior seminar next month.
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ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting if Kasdorf and Gundy still critique each other's works in their own writing. Also, I am not able to fit in/relate to the Mennonite stereotype, which I always say so that way nobody forgets.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting how these writers embody the Mennonite emphasis on community through their writing. I know that whenever any author publishes something, he or she is contributing to an ongoing writers community, but community seems especially pronounced within these three Mennonite poems. I guess because there is relatively so little Mennonite literature, Mennonite authors kind of all know each other and in some ways feed off of each other. Whether these are loving relationships (like the traditional Mennonite aspires to in community) or not is another question . . .
ReplyDeleteBut in some ways, these authors have taken the Mennonite value in relationship and sharing and have formed their own unique community, apart from both the Mennonite and mainstream worlds. I like the way these three authors have critiqued, refined, and complimented each other's words within their own Mennonite writing community.