KASDORF, Julia 1962-
(Julia Spicher)

PERSONAL: Born December 6, 1962, in Lewistown, PA; daughter of John and Virginia (a nurse; maiden name, Peachey) Spicher; married David M. Kasdorf (an artist and teacher), July 27, 1986. Education: Attended Goshen College, 1981-83; New York University, B.A., 1985, M.A., 1990, Ph.D. Politics: "Leaning left." Religion: Mennonite.

ADDRESSES: Home—52 Kermit Pl., New York, NY 11218. Offıce—New York University, 25 West Fourth St., 4th Floor, New York, NY 10012.

CAREER: Pennsylvania Governors School for the Arts, instructor, 1984, 1985, 1987; St. Anthony's Commercial School, New York, NY, teacher, 1985-86; Institute of Fine Arts, New York, NY, slide library assistant, 1986-87; New York University, New York, NY, writer, 1987-89, instructor, beginning 1989, manager of development communications, currently professor of English.

MEMBER: National Council of Teachers of English, Associated Writing Programs.

AWARDS, HONORS: Thomas Wolfe Memorial Poetry Prize, New York University, 1984; Agnes Lynch Star-rett Poetry Prize, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991, and Award for New Writing, Great Lakes Colleges Association, 1993, both for Sleeping Preacher; fellowships from MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and Ragdale Foundation.

WRITINGS:

(Under name Julia Spicher) Moss Lotus (chapbook), Pinchpenny (Atlanta, GA), 1983.

Sleeping Preacher (poems), University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1992.

Eve's Striptease (poems), University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1998.

The Body and the Book: Writing from a MennoniteLife (essays and poems), Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 2001.

Fixing Tradition: Joseph W. Yoder, Amish American, Pandora Press (Telford, PA)/Herald Press (Scottdale, PA), 2003.

Work represented in anthologies, including Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry, 1986-1988, edited by Alan F. Pater, Monitor Book, 1988; and Looking for Home: Women Writing about Exile, edited by Deborah Keenan and Roseann Lloyd, Milkweed Editions, 1990. Contributor to periodicals, including New Yorker, Spoon River Quarterly, Taos Review, Cincinnati Poetry Review, Festival Quarterly, West Branch, Yarrow, and Western Journal of Medicine.

SIDELIGHTS: Considered by many to be one of the foremost Mennonite poets writing today, Julia Kasdorf was actually raised in a suburb of Pittsburgh. Born to Mennonite parents who left their rural existence for the city, Kasdorf writes poems that address the tension caused by her unique upbringing and beliefs as they clash with lifestyles and opinions held by the people she encounters daily as a poet and teacher in New York City. In the poem "Green Market, New York" from Sleeping Preacher, for example, Kasdorf and a Mennonite woman have a conversation during which the other woman "eyes my short hair / then looks square on my face / Do you live in the city? she asks, do you like it?"; Kasdorf told Tribune-Review contributor Christine Kindl that she "still isn't sure how to answer that question."

In the more recent collection of poems and essays The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life, Kasdorf combines "historical research, family legend, and poignant autobiography, exploring such themes as martyrdom, work, and hope," according to Joyce Smothers in Library Journal. Kasdorf also writes about poetry, using her poems as examples, and about the spiritual heritage of the male-dominated Mennonite culture, which, commented Carolyn Maddux in the Antioch Review, "she both castigates and celebrates." The author takes a feminist view of the Mennonite church and culture that is colored by her urban experiences and interspersed with childhood visits to her grandmother's farm. Maddux commented that the essays in The Body and the Book are sometimes successful, sometimes not. Ranging from "warm reminiscence" to "abstract and academic" discussions on history, the collection is "intensely readable at its best, . . . [but] has its disappointments." Smothers, however, was especially impressed with the essay "Writing Like a Mennonite," which recounts the time one of Kasdorf's neighbors sexually molested her. The piece, concluded Smothers, "possesses a strong emotional impact."

About her poetry and its link to her religion, Kasdorf told Kindl that Mennonites "have a very literal sense of the written word, in terms of Biblical text. I grew up with a belief in the power of language to enact. We don't take oaths or call on a higher authority. We believe that whatever you say should be the truth. So what I write is fiction, in the sense that it is filtered through a very specific perception. But it is my intention to be accessible, to use plain language and not be abstract."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Antioch Review, summer, 2002, Carolyn Maddux, review of The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life, p. 529.

Library Journal, April 1, 1999, Barbara Hoffert, review of Eve's Striptease, p. 96; November 1, 2001, Joyce Smothers, review of The Body and the Book, p. 99.

Publishers Weekly, October 19, 1992, review of Sleeping Preacher, p. 72.

Tribune-Review, February 9, 1992, Christine Kindl, p. 4.*