poetry

Six months later…

/ karaknick / 3 Comments

Hard to believe that I wrote my first blog post just a little over six months ago.  I had zero clue what the hell I was doing, and constantly asked my friends Sara at Californyinz and Marissa at Ampersand Creative to help guide me through the process. (Check them out, they’re amazing!)

Originally, I was searching for a home to recount my traveling adventures both past and present and create an outlet for my passion for poetry & nonfiction. In doing so, I’ve found an incredible community of other writers and travelers, and received a surprising amount of support from friends & family. I now have over 4,000 followers and growing! I have also discovered that keeping up with a blog is not always easy…

If you are a regular follower, or even an occasional creeper, you can see that I have not written a post in exactly a month. While I’ll elaborate on those reasons in a later post, I thought I’d check in to bring readers up to speed on what’s going on now.

-I am still taking Madwomen in the Attic classes. I’m currently in a poetry workshop that proves itself to be more than overwhelming at times, but forces me to churn out new writing every week.

-Marathon training is underway. Those 26.2 miles are coming for me May 1st, whether I am ready for it or not! Check out A Year of Races to see where my love/hate relationship with running all started.

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-Next week I’ll be in Minneapolis! Getting accepted to present my work at the Sigma Tau Delta International English Convention was one of the highlights of my undergraduate career, and I’m thrilled to be going to the City of Lakes soon to do it all over again, this time as an alumna. Prose Before Bros tells it all. Got suggestions on things to see/eat/do? Send them my way!

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-All writers are used to rejection, and I had come to expect it. Imagine my shock when I found that two poems and one creative nonfiction piece of mine were accepted for publication! Once all are available for purchase and/or accessible online, I will provide the links so that you can read up 🙂 Excited to be making some progress, however slowly.

-My next international travel excursion is hopefully taking place in the fall of this year, with Southeast Asia (Thailand) or South America (Peru) as my top two picks. However, I’m doing my best to still travel within the states as much as time allows. Some upcoming cities on my list: Chicago, Atlanta, and Seattle.

-I got Beyoncé tickets. This has nothing to do with my blog specifically, but EVERYTHING to do with me since I’ve loved her since Day 1. My homegirl Catherine & I will be getting in formation on May 31.  Conclude fangirl rant.

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For all those of you that read and follow my blog, I cannot say enough how much I appreciate it. You must be just weird enough to find my ramblings interesting, and I thank God for that! Not to mention the way you support and promote my blog and my written work with the likes, comments, and shares…I am grateful you care enough to see things From This Side of the Sun. And I’m so glad you’re on this journey with me.

 

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Prose Before Bros

/ karaknick / 11 Comments

Yes, I said it.

I thought I was in love when I kissed my first crush, Seth, on the cheek when I was seven. We were behind a tree during a family camping retreat for the Boy Scouts, which both he and my brother were part of. (Smart girl-learning to break hearts at a young age.)

…But it wasn’t exactly a fairy tale ending.  He immediately straightened his glasses, gave me a weird look, and ran away. We didn’t speak after that. But that’s okay, because I learned a different love- escaping with a book instead of chasing boys.

Since then, writers from Sylvia Plath to J.K. Rowling paved the way for my love of literature. Teachers from elementary school to college classes taught me to create my own by nurturing and guiding my craft. I couldn’t ever explain it, but words empowered me. I mean, who needs a man when you’ve got countless characters to fall in love with? There was nothing quite like losing myself entirely in a story, or better yet, discovering myself between its pages in the process. And when I wrote? Indescribable. It was like I held the power. Let’s get real here- The last lines of Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus are a perfect example.

“Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.”

Come onnnnn. It still gives me chills! But somewhere between that first kiss to writing poetry in my bedroom to getting my first apartment, I lost touch with the paper and pen. When I wrote in college, it was only for an assignment. I stopped reading for pleasure altogether. In fact, I stopped reading. I skimmed, or would use Google. And I definitely couldn’t remember the last time I sat down to write for me. I was caught up in relationships and social life,  and then just trying to get a job like most college grads. Then I got a job and an apartment, and was trying to figure out happiness and paying the bills but still traveling, and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. (Spoiler alert: I still don’t know.) When I finally wrote again, it was hard. It sucked. I wasted years not reading and writing, and all I could see was how far behind I was.

Which brings me to the here and now. I created this blog to keep writing, and as a place to bring my stories of travel. I joined a writing class. I’ve been submitting my work.

I delayed posting until this week because I was waiting to hear whether or not I got accepted to the 2016 Sigma Tau Delta’s International Convention, and I am THRILLED to announce that I received the e-mail last night.

So hold on. What exactly is Sigma Tau Delta, you may ask? First off, it is not a sorority. It also isn’t a sexually transmitted disease. Although that is, in fact, what the acronym implies. Ha. STD is an International English Honor Society.  (And yes, believe me, we tried to get “Prose Before Bros” or “STD: Gotta read ’em all!” as our T-shirt sayings, but it didn’t stand a chance against administration.)

I joined Sigma Tau Delta in 2010, and, in my junior year of college, presented at the 2011 Convention March 23-26th in Pittsburgh, PA (shown below). The convention theme was “Beyond Words.”

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With friends Samantha and Laura, exploring the ‘burgh and attending presentations (below).

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Practice makes perfect!

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I presented an original poem, “Discoloration” which I wrote about my father.

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 A year later in 2012,  I had the time of my life at the convention, which was held in New Orleans, LA from February 29-March 3. The convention theme that year was “Reawaken.” New Orleans was a beautiful city, and I heard such beautiful writing in the sessions I attended. I was a senior in college then, and even now I am amazed by the memories I made there, from Bourbon Street to friendships I stumbled into. I hope to go back someday.  I’m still craving beignets from Café du Monde…

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Some classmates/fellow STD members with our professor, Dr. Andrew Ade (above) and below at the Red & Black Gala Dinner and Convention Awards.

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I told you I take eating seriously.

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Presenting poetry from my collection “The Art of Baptizing.”

Now, it has been over three years since I graduated college. I rediscovered Sigma Tau Delta recently and joined the Alumni Epsilon Chapter. Shortly thereafter, I realized I could still submit, and if accepted, present at the convention. Naturally, I was stoked and submitted as soon as I could pull something together. I have been racking my brain waiting these past couple months to see whether or not I would be accepted. Seriously. Not knowing was brutal, and so was trying to prepare myself for rejection.

But, this has a fairy tale ending after all. I am so happy to announce that this year, I am one of 24 Sigma Tau Delta alumni that will present at the convention in Minneapolis, MN from March 2-5, 2016. The convention theme is “Finding Home.” I will be reading ten poems from my collection “From This Side of the Sun.”

Are there any other Sigma Tau Delta members out there? Would love to connect with you!

 

Stay classy readers,

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P.S. I went to Minnesota when I was younger and all I remember is the Mall of America. What is at the top of your list for things to see & do in the City of Lakes?
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On a Connecting Flight from Philadelphia to Frankfurt

/ karaknick / 10 Comments

I make my home for the next eight hours in seat 22C, separated by an aisle from two French girls with honey woven hair, their words bubbling over the soft cries of a child behind me.
To my right- a blonde, straight-faced younger man. He copies my dinner order on our overnight flight, and I exchange names for time to kill.
Ryan from Indiana, graduate from Nashville, selling engineering equipment on a business trip.
I tell him I am Kara, almost 23, a bird fleeing from the suffocating nest of corporate worlds
And how I will travel.

He said I inspired him to do something spontaneous
But he is not yet ready to canyon jump in Interlaken
Or abandon ship from the security of a 9-5 office,
That 35,000 feet in the air is more than enough risk.
I laugh as we talk of past education, and our families back home
He is 27. No kids or wife, he says.
Conversation is a coffee-carrying flight attendant still meandering
As we touch down in Frankfurt, our throats scratched from conversation.
He jokes that he better be in my book when it is published
And my eyes smile as if to say, “You will.”

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Weeks later, I will remember this journal entry and look up Ryan from Indiana
To find two blonde toddlers and a wife plastered in his pictures
And will need to steady myself from the turbulence.
Why did you have to invent a story to a woman you just met, leaving out the woman you wrote it with?
And stash oxygen masks from your children as you suffocate them with your silence?
Why lie at all?
Maybe you needed to feel the desire of fresh attraction,
Or try on a shade of single to cover up what you left behind.
But hiding your wedding ring, in a foreign country, telling your wife you love her when you’re flying white lies fast out of Germany…you make me wish I could think up a plane crash for men like you.

P.S. Here you go, Ryan. I wrote about you.

 

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National Poetry Day

/ karaknick / 11 Comments

 

It is National Poetry Day!
I won’t post a poem today, but instead, I want to ask my readers:
Where does your inspiration come from?
Any helpful writing exercises that you’ve used lately?
Drop the link to them (or your favorite poem) in a comment below!
Here is one of mine:

 

Always– Rane Arroyo

 

We met in proud Utah and wore opaque
vodka on those vague Sundays for the
unfaithful on your dangling back porch
while dreaming of the very New York
where we entangled for the last time.
Te quiero, you said there, my ears as
paths. You then vanished with a macho
because I had a lover,
because we’d never ride across Russia together in
that frozen train, because listening
to A Chorus Line all those weekends
didn’t teach us the foreign language of our bodies,
because of your career as a model
after years as a military mannequin,
because we never expected
adios to be our actual parting last word.
Because, because, and because.
You turned around to stare at me and I waved
back: I love you too.
What an education:
poetry always demands all my ghosts.

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P.S. Go fall in love with some words today.

25 and Comin’ Alive

/ karaknick / 3 Comments

I’m always a day late and a dollar short.

Just two weeks after turning 25, I am finally forging a path back to my childhood dream. With this blog, I hope to not only retrace my footsteps over five months of traveling in Europe, but also rediscover my voice as a writer.

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It’s funny how thirteen-year-old me knew best all along, huh?

Since then, I’ve transferred colleges, broken up with boyfriends, had surgeries, gained a sister and a niece, crashed my car, built friendships that failed, found a soulmate, ate the weirdest sea creatures imaginable, drank absinthe, swam topless in the Mediterranean, cried in castles, jumped from mountains, and the whole time I drifted in and out of my first love- writing.

I received my B.A. in English from Westminster College in 2012 and moved to Pittsburgh, PA. After working for a year in a job that I increasingly became more unhappy at, I had my quarter-life crisis early and quit my job to travel. Now, two years later, From This Side of the Sun is the compilation of months and months of poetry, journal entries, pictures, and word vomit that expels every emotion I’ve ever felt.

Head over to my about me page so I can introduce myself further, or (for those who know me) refresh your memory on where I’ve been.

Can’t wait to catch up with you all!

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