{"id":8536,"date":"2024-02-16T19:59:37","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T19:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=8536"},"modified":"2024-02-16T19:59:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T19:59:37","slug":"scotland-further-poems-by-karol-nielsen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/scotland-further-poems-by-karol-nielsen\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland & Further Poems by Karol Nielsen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\nScotland<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWe took a family trip to Scotland and toured the country in a minivan. My great grandmother \r\nhad Scottish roots. Her maiden name was Bothwell. My grandfather said we descended from a \r\nScottish earl, Lord Bothwell, who kidnapped and married Mary, Queen of Scots. We visited \r\nBothwell Castle and learned the history. Mary, Queen of Scots\u2019 third and final husband\u2014James \r\nHepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell\u2014was not our ancestor. It was one of my grandfather\u2019s tall tales.\r\n\r\nFlashes of Inspiration<\/strong>\r\n\r\nI used to come up with a new poem in order to have something to read at my monthly open mic. \r\nI was always inspired by colorful experiences in the city. I began to write in big bursts based on \r\nmemories during the pandemic when live encounters were few and far between. Now I notice the \r\nwoman with a neon green afro, the police explorer with a diamond stud on her tooth, the sleepy \r\nteen in pajamas and Winnie the Pooh slippers on the subway. I have flashes of inspiration as life \r\nreturns to normal.\r\n\r\nDead Poets Society<\/strong>\r\n\r\nMy Israeli boyfriend and I had one of our first disagreements over the movie Dead Poets Society. \r\nIn the film, prep school students are inspired by their teacher to embrace poetry and seize the \r\nday\u2014carpe diem! One of the students, an aspiring actor, shoots himself after his father enrolls \r\nhim in military school. \u201cI don\u2019t want to see this guy in Israel,\u201d my boyfriend said. He had completed \r\nhis mandatory military service in Israel during the first intifada. I defended the film, but he \r\nwouldn\u2019t budge. It was an early sign of our divorce. Now I surround myself with poets and writers \r\nwho feed my soul.\r\n\r\nGoogling<\/strong>\r\n\r\nI started to Google myself after I went to a party with poets and writers hosted by my urban \r\nwriters\u2019 colony. People kept asking what I did and I said I was a writing instructor with a memoir \r\nin progress. Most of the people I talked to were published authors who said they would look me up \r\nonline. I felt self conscious because I had not published a book. When I got home I Googled myself \r\nto see what they would see. I was astounded when I saw a link to The Best American Essays. My first \r\npublished essay had been named a notable essay in the anthology and I had no idea. This lucky \r\ndiscovery prompted more searches. Now I check DuckDuckGo. I find unexpected reviews of my books \r\nby strangers and poems published without a formal acceptance. I cannot resist the urge to look for \r\nmore happy surprises.<\/pre>\n
 
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\nKarol Nielsen <\/strong>is the author of the memoirs Walking A&P <\/em>and Black Elephants <\/em>and three poetry chapbooks. Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her full-length poetry collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her poem \u201cThis New Manhattan\u201d<\/em> was a finalist for the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize<\/p>\n
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Scotland We took a family trip to Scotland and toured the country in a minivan. My great grandmother had Scottish roots. Her maiden name was Bothwell. My grandfather said we descended from a Scottish earl, Lord Bothwell, who kidnapped and married Mary, Queen of Scots. We visited Bothwell Castle and learned the history. Mary, Queen … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[941,808,796,366,401,43],"tags":[18,136,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8536"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8543,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8536\/revisions\/8543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}