Name: Kathryn Julian
Hometown: Birmingham, Alabama
Current town: Northampton, MA
Occupation: Visiting Professor
What does poetry mean to you?
As a historian, I can’t help but think of poetry first and foremost as a poignant expression of the lived experiences of people past and present. Poetry reflects the textures and nuances of particular places and temporalities. Poems relay myths and truths of the collective and individual human past: the medieval mystic’s prayer, the red clay and hot summers of adolescence, the present earthy chill of New England spring. Poetry is collective memory and collective forgetting, the extraordinary and the mundane. Poems are a resource that help us understand the complexities and contradictions of being human.
Favorite Poet:
I'm currently working my way through Linda Hogan's collections of poetry. Her poems highlight the alliance between ecological activism and spiritual awareness. Hogan's poetry encourages me to think about the intersections of culture, the environment, eco-feminism, theology, and the every day. Her words create a sense of urgency to live within nature.
“To Be Held”
by Linda Hogan
To be held
by the light
was what I wanted,
to be a tree drinking the rain,
no longer parched in this hot land.
To be roots in a tunnel growing
but also to be sheltering the inborn leaves
and the green slide of mineral
down the immense distances
into infinite comfort
and the land here, only clay,
still contains and consumes
the thirsty need
the way a tree always shelters the unborn life
waiting for the healing
after the storm
which has been our life.
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Kathryn Julian is a historian based in western Massachusetts. She writes and reads about sacred spaces, ecology, and religion.
