Julia Kasdorf's Sleeping Preacher

I did not particularly care for Sleeping Preacher by Julia Kasdorf. I guess I kind of liked a little bit from it, specifically the tiniest things I can relate to, whether it was something I have gone through or something I see such as commercials. Just like I had said in class this past Wednesday, I can kind of relate to Kasdorf's poem "Green Market, New York."

My parents were born in the Chicago-land area. I was born in Kankakee, Illinois, as was my sister. We lived in Matteson, Illinois, for a little bit with my grandmother on my dad's side, and we lived in Richton Park, Illinois, for a little bit with my grandmother on my mom's side. We also lived in an apartment in Peotone, Illinois, for maybe up to three years before we moved to Gary, Indiana where we stayed for almost a year so that I could go to pre-school or headstart (whichever you prefer). That was in 1994-1995. In June of 1995, my parents, my sister, and I moved into our place in Nappanee, Indiana. We currently still live in the same exact house (actually, it is a 2 1/2 bedroom and 1 1/2 bath mobile home) that we moved into. This June will be 16 years that we have lived in Nappanee.

The difference between Kasdorf and my living areas is that she moved from (I'm guessing) a small town to a big city. Me, I moved from big cities to a small area (Nappanee is technically really a city, but a small city (you wouldn't think of it as being one)). The difference between both areas is that the city is loud, noisy, crowded, fast, and busy all of the time while Nappanee is quiet, peaceful, spread out, slow (even without the horses and buggys), and not busy (although the lunch hour and the 4/5 o'clock hour can be bad at times).

My family can relate to the poem "First TV in a Mennonite Family." Okay, well, we can't relate to the "first TV" thing or "Mennonite family" thing, but I can say that, when I was about ten or so, we had our first computer. Being on the computers at school does not really count because the computer technically is not yours. So, I think that we can, in a way, relate to the "first TV" thing.

My mom can relate to the title of the poem "After the Second Miscarriage." My mom had three miscarriages in total. She had one before me, a second between me and my sister, and one after my sister. The birth years for the last four of us would have been 1989 (me), 1990 (the middle sibling), 1991 (my sister), and 1992 (our brother). Even though I personally have not gone through miscarriages (let alone a pregnancy), I can say that my mother has gone through this.

There is more that I can say from, probably, the entire book, but I don't think I am going to do so because I can probably pick out one line from each poem and write an entire paragraph. So, I think that I am going to leave it here.