Welcome to Poetry and Purpose in Northern Ireland!

Greetings! Jessica Baldanzi here. I’m an English and writing professor who landed at Goshen College thanks to her GC-graduate husband, Kyle Schlabach. We have both been teaching at GC for almost 20 years, and Kyle is now also a pastor at East Goshen Mennonite Church.

Kyle and I are co-leaders of the SST class Poetry and Purpose in Northern Ireland. We first designed and ran the class in 2024, and we are thrilled to be able to immerse ourselves in the rich history and landscape of Northern Ireland with a new group of students this summer!

Our teenage sons Thomas and Leo will be joining us for the class as well. Here’s a picture of Kyle, and much younger Thomas and Leo, on our very first visit to Ballycastle, our home base for the trip.

And here’s a picture of me at Giant’s Causeway taking photos (which the students will see me doing a lot of):

Our group will be staying at the Corrymeela community, just outside of Ballycastle. Corrymeela is an intentional Christian community that found its mission as a peace and reconciliation center during the Troubles. They have continued to work with groups in conflict and distress from all over the world for many years in the decades since. Much of our volunteer work will take place at Corrymeela, where we will undertake on-site painting and gardening projects. You can read more about Corrymeela here.

Our guiding question for the class is: What can poetry and other forms of written creative expression accomplish in the face of violent conflict like the Troubles? For our first day trip, we will visit the Seamus Heaney HomePlace museum in Bellaghy. We will spend an afternoon exploring the museum and learning about how this Nobel Prize-winning writer did his best to answer that difficult question through poetry.

Our other excursions include Giant’s Causeway, Dunluce Castle, Derry, Belfast, and Rathlin Island, but every day we’ll be returning to Ballycastle, on the northeast coast. On clear days, we will be able to see Scotland across the water!

The students will take turns collaborating on blog posts as part of their course work, so stay tuned as they share their reflections and continued learning in the upcoming weeks.