Americana Folktale
published by Emerald Coast Writers, 2024
ISBN: 979-8337527901
128 N Bronough St, Tallahassee, FL 32301
Sarah Karowski’s debut poetry chapbook, Americana Folktale, is a body of poems that hits on a visceral level and transports readers to a world where they can roam freely and still share the emotions the writer wants to convey. From the first poem to the last, there is this countryside world of the poet’s youth and life experiences portrayed by great poems full of colorful stories that stay with you long after you finish reading. From 4th of July celebrations to playing in creeks, to coming of age and remembering lessons from father like taking the car in for an oil change, the reader is immersed in the immediacy of each poem, watching the author grow up in a world meticulously painted poem by poem.
Praise for Americana Folktale
"Sarah Karowski wows in this debut collection written in the language, images, and--perhaps most importantly--questions of America. Through Toby Keith-haunted barbecue prayers, fathers in light, less-than-free hamsters, and girls watching boys getting to be boys, Karowski shows us--in sometimes delicate, sometimes stark, and always real ways--an image of America in the fireworks of her words, specks of light that fall close enough to the reader to show them the hidden lines buttressing the world we know."
- Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr., author of Gay Poems for Red States.
"In American Folktale, Sarah Karowski engages us in difficult but necessary conversations. This decisive collection of poems bears witness to the fictions we use to keep ourselves warm at night. From the silencing of women, to the stigma of mental illness, to loveless unions, to the violence that takes residence in our prayers, Karowski shows us that there is always an alternative. In a time when everything about the world is dire, Karowski shows us that there is hope and redemption through friendship and poetry. "
- Reverie Koniecki, author of to the god of sore feet and bad backs and The Wars That Steer Us.
"I have long been envious of poets who capture place, and I am pleased to add Sarah Karowski to that long list. Through crescendoing details both tender and raw, we experience rooftops, bedrooms, kitchens, churches, and basements through the poet’s eyes. But Karowski doesn’t merely capture place as a photographer might; she takes it one step further. She captures a place as it becomes a dream through memory and time. And that is what Americana is. That is what folklore is. And the past, and childhood, and poetry—all woven together in a dream. A good thing we have such a skilled weaver."
- Nadia Arioli, EIC of Thimble Literary Magazine and author of MOTHER FUR and BE STILL
‘Before I learned civility, I used to scream ferociously,’ ends Karowski’s poem ‘One of the Boys,’ and it is this ferocity that brings each memory excavated and dissected to life throughout Americana Folktale. Amid a colorful menagerie of beetles, tarantulas, ticks, and ladybugs and a floristic inventory of mulberries, Smilax, clover grass, and hydrangeas, Karowski contends with the mythology of a ‘happy,’ Christian America through critical interrogations of the speaker’s Southern upbringing, including emotionally complex interactions with God-fearing parents, moments of queer awakening in a conservative milieu, and journeys into nature that allow the speaker to find peace within herself. A roar echoes throughout these poems as if to implore, ‘Always be wild.’ This wildness will grab hold of you, pull you along the dandelion-lined highways of the speaker’s journey, and remind you that despite our differences, the dirt that grazes our toes welcomes all of us.
- Dani Putney, author of Salamat sa Intersectionality