Jessica Baldanzi, professor of English, had the chance to publish one of her poems in the North American Review over the summer. 

Since its foundation in 1815, the North American Review has been one of America’s most prominent literary journals. Mark Twain, Margaret Atwood and Walt Whitman are among the writers that have been published by the journal in its 211-year history. Thomas Jefferson was an early subscriber of the publication. 

Baldanzi’s poem, titled “Respects,” is a work in conversation with Seamus Heaney’s 1966 work “Mid-Term Break.” In the work that inspired Baldanzi, Heaney writes about the experience of losing his young brother to a car crash. Heaney was 14 years old at the time. “I have always loved Seamus Heaney, ever since I read him as an undergraduate student,” Baldanzi said about her personal connection to the Northern Irish poet. “The poem ‘Mid-Term Break’ always cut right to my soul ever since I first read it.” 

Baldanzi’s love of Heaney’s work led her to develop the GLST 271 class, Poetry and Purpose in Northern Ireland, in which Goshen College students have the opportunity to spend three weeks studying how poetry has impacted the history of violence on the island, which is still split between English and Irish sovereignty. 

While on a research trip to Northern Ireland to plan the course, Baldanzi and her family visited the Seamus Heaney Homeplace Museum. There, she was shocked to learn that the brother Heaney wrote about in “Mid-Term Break” shared a name, Christopher, with her deceased son. 

The first line of her poem, “Lost Christophers proliferate,” sprung from this discovery. 

She proceeded to work on the poem for the next three years. “Respects” was accepted by the NAR about a year ago and appeared in print this summer.

Having creative works published is a frequent occupation for Baldanzi. She usually sends out three to five works out at a time to various publications, although letting go of pieces she has written is hard for her. “I always want to improve everything, even when it’s in print,” she said about the struggle of accepting that a poem is ready to be put out into the world. 

She is now turning her focus more into the realm of memoir and creative nonfiction with an essay she has been sending to various publishers, as well as working on a larger manuscript she hopes to get published about the 20th anniversary of her son’s death.