Ask The Author: Karrie Waarala

Way back in June, when the days were just getting longer and the summer romances were just getting hotter, Two Poems by Karrie Waarala appeared in our June Issue.  Her poems are wonderful and here she discusses with us more like it was a hick-easy afternoon.

1. How did being part of the poetry slam movement improve your short poetry game?

Being part of the poetry slam community taught me to be a teller of compact stories. While it’s been refreshing to get away from the three-minute mindset and explore poems of differing lengths and styles, without my experience in slam, I wouldn’t have had the performance foundation necessary to link those new poems together to form the basis for my one-woman show.

2. How do you measure loggers based on the damage they deal?

With a yardstick, a tree caliper, and a seismograph.

 3. What would you do to put a wounded deer out of its misery?

I would love to think that I would be valiant and humane and put down an animal that was mortally wounded myself if I had to. But I remember the moment when I was a child at which I learned that veterinarians have to euthanize animals. It was followed immediately by the moment that I decided that I would have to give up my dream of being a veterinarian.

4. Where can I buy this map of girls with stone pretty ears?

Oh, you can’t buy that map, my friend. You have to make one yourself. Start with a road atlas, then find all the points on it that intersect with a railway system map from before the big CSX merger, and a circus route book from, say, 1947. Cross-reference that against the northern hemisphere summer constellations and your little black book, and you’ll be off to a good start.

5. What is a hick-easy afternoon?

Think hammock. Think tall grass. Think lazy sun slanting just right to catch whorls of sawdust. Think hayloft. Think no consequences or repercussions but plenty of slow-smile memories.

6. If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?

Of course! (And yes, I say that to all the boys.)