Kern Carter's Blog, page 85
October 25, 2021
Call For Submissions — Your Friends Don’t Get It
Deciding to be a writer or any artist is a brave path. There are no guarantees, it’s often a long, emotional road to success, and even though the writing community is incredibly supportive, dealing with the rejection that comes with this industry is really, really hard.
And friends don’t get it. Tell me if this sounds familiar:
“Oh, you write? What do you actually do for money?”
“You mean writing is your job, job?”
“What do you mean you want to be a writer?”
“No one reads anymore.”
“No one makes money writing.”
“Maybe you should hold on to your job until this writing thing works out.”
“What’s the point of blogging?”
You’ve probably heard one or more of these expressions from friends and maybe even family. They just don’t get it and that can be tough, especially when you’re looking for support from the people you know and love.
For this week’s call for submissions, tell us about your friends and family. How do they show or not show support for your writing or creative careers? Is there a particular conversation or interaction that stands out?
**Quick note: We ARE NOT accepting new writers at the moment. We’ll likely open up to new writers sometime in the new year.Same rules still apply:You can submit to this or ANY of our past writing prompts. Just scroll through our previous newsletters. They’ll be marked “Call for Submissions.”If you’re already a writer for CRY, go ahead and submit.Be as creative as you want in your submissions. As long as you stick to the topic, we’ll consider it.Just because you submit doesn’t mean we’ll post. If you haven’t heard back from us in three days, consider that a pass.Please reach out if you have any questions at all. If you are new to Medium, here’s how you submit a draft to a publication.
[image error]Call For Submissions — Your Friends Don’t Get It was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
October 24, 2021
Roaming These Streets Alone
Until I stumbled across a community of writers who took my hand and gave me something to hold on to
Lost
Photo by Rosie Sun on UnsplashI got lost today
looking for myself
no one could find me
I couldn’t find myself
no matter how hard I tried
the mirror is the first place I looked
I looked into the eyes of the person there
but I didn’t trust them
there was something shifty about them
and that smirk seemed malevolent
so I walked away
hoping to maybe find a place
where they would recognize me
or maybe miss me
call out for me
and hearing my name I would know
no one called
only my own voice in my head
that I don’t recognize
the whisper of the leaves
invite me into the trees
the crashing waves of the sea
calling to take me into the deep
the song of the birds
only sounds no words
I wander aimlessly
absorbing what is around me
everything is foreign and familiar
all the roads look the same
these streets have no names
so I guess I’m in good company
except I can’t make a connection
even roads have intersections
every curve is an anticipation
every object a fascination
the bar isn’t set really high
when your baseline is a void
black hole never satisfied
but more importantly
never identified
when there is nothing left
maybe I cave in on myself
finally discover what is me
with reference to nothing else
if there is only me
then it stands to reason
that I should find myself
identified
maybe there will be only darkness
emptiness
I’m afraid
I’ve lost myself
[image error]Lost was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
October 23, 2021
Who is Your Beacon Light?
The very first poem in the Senior Higher Secondary English textbook is titled 'The Person I am Looking For' and the writer is Hazara Singh. The poem lists the kind of qualities one would look for, in an ideal human being.
I was conducting a lecture in an Arts class, and after telling the students how lucky they were to be studying the Humanities, I set them a task to do.
The TaskThe last stanza of the poem contains a line which says that if you have all the ideal qualities the poet was looking for, you will be a 'beacon-light for people far and wide.'
I asked the kids to write an essay on whoever they thought was the beacon-light in their lives. Time-30 minutes.
As I brought the essays home and read them, and I went down on my knees in gratitude that I was an English teacher. I had the privilege to read the kind of things these teenagers, supposedly blasé, and cynical, felt, and expressed in such lucid prose and with such felicity, that I was left reeling in joyful amazement.
They write about fathers who had to shoulder responsibility at the age of 15, because of a change in family fortunes, "my father used to wear a borrowed suit and go to work, to appear older than he was, when his father died, leaving him to take care of all responsibilities when he was 15." He is the beacon light of my life, she says.
My grandfather died last month, another wrote, He was 78. For the last couple of months before he died, he was in extreme physical pain, but I never saw him frown. He used to tell me, she concludes, that the only one who can keep you down is yourself. When you fall, get up and walk again. I love him, the child concludes. He made me what I am.
My father was so poor, said another one, he delivered newspapers to pay for his school fees. He taught me to dream big and go after the dream with confidence.
My friend was my beacon light, said another, but she had an accident owing to a short circuit in her house. She died in hospital eight months ago, but she taught me that life is precious.
My beacon-light is my friend, says another and we are so close that I am terrified of what will happen if she is no longer part of my life.
There are also a couple of kids grateful to doctors, teachers, psychotherapists, family members dealing with autistic kids, and single mothers, and what they wrote about these people brought me to tears, realising again how many problems the smiling face of a teenager hides, and what a wealth of understanding they possess. It is a privilege, and an honour to help a teenager learn.
To all the writers here, who are teachers: Anastasia Soul Gypsy Lilit A. Sargsyan Ruby Lee Luccia Gray Ritu S Kapadia Luisinha Miracorrea, Ayse Birsel, EP McKnight, MEd , Connie Song, TAKING OFF THE ARMOR, Marcella Carey we have all seen this spark in class, haven’t we?
Stay blessed.
Who is Your Beacon Light? was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
The End Of A One-Sided Relationship
A letter to myself.
(Photo by MART PRODUCTION Pexels)And if this is the end,
so be it
But what have you learned from it?
What have you won,
what, lost?
A handful of songs
A spoonful of advice
A thimbleful of warmth?
But what if there wasn’t even a beginning,
And the ‘beginning’ was only in your head
And that it was your interpretation
of what didn’t happen,
But you wished it had?
What if this was just another
moment in time
That would have gone unnoticed
If you had not invested so much intensity into it?
To survive, now
You need to distance yourself
However painful that is:
Because without that distance, deliberately created,
You are going to disintegrate in every possible way
…
But if it is destined to be,
It will come to pass
And no amount of resolution
or conviction
Certainty or decisiveness will
keep away
What has to happen.
Don’t push it, so
Away from, or towards
There is a plan
That you know nothing of
Can you leave it at that,
And quit
stressing
pushing
pulling
lifting
sifting,
shifting?
But for now,
You need to distance yourself
To survive with dignity.
[image error]The End Of A One-Sided Relationship was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
A Lesson in Survival
(Picture Courtesy: RODNAE Productions Pexels)“I was sexually abused by the cousin I was closest to,” she had written, and for a moment, the world stopped spinning, and my heart seemed to go silent and still.
It was a Humanities undergrad class, and it was full of girls. They were all perky, mischievous, outspoken and brutally frank. They were also, obviously, not in the mood for an English Literature lecture. I looked around at the class. They stared back at me expectantly.
“Write,” I told them, “about whatever occupies your mind, most of the time.” Instantly there was a chorus of heartfelt groans and protests. Above the din, I stated, “I will be collecting the papers at the end of the lecture. You can keep your contribution anonymous if you wish to.” That sounded more interesting.
“…and if I don’t get the paper, you don’t get attendance,” I said, tongue firmly in cheek.
“Sneaky,” muttered someone in a stage whisper.
So they began writing, though not without a renewed chorus of protests.
I collected all the papers ten minutes before the lecture ended.
I was spellbound by the pieces. The grammatical and syntactical inaccuracies did not matter.
With a maturity that amazed me, all these young women had written of love, loss and change. Some described beloved grandparents, some wrote of affairs of the heart, and some, the sense of desolation they felt at idols that had fallen off pedestals.
But this child’s confession left me reeling.
I didn’t ask her to come and meet me after class. I didn’t ask the name of the anonymous writer.
I spoke about sexual assault and the sense of guilt the victim feels, and the general conviction that they ‘asked’ for it, or that they were responsible for it in some way. I told them ways in which they could say ‘No!’ And mean it. I told them about redressal. And, since this was not the first time, or the last, that I was addressing such issues, I gave them a list of agencies and helplines that could help. I also gave them a list of organisations that conducted free self-defence classes for women and girls.
I left the classroom that day with the feeling that I had helped.
Is that the end of the story?
No.
Five years later, when my sixth book was launched, many of my past and current students attended. Among the people who spoke was a self-possessed young lady, elegant, with a pair of the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen.
She walked up to the microphone and said, “I am here today because of an English teacher who helped me change the course of my life.”
And she spoke of how what I had said that day in class helped her re-assess her value systems, get rid of guilt, learn self-defence, and teach all these to others in a similar predicament.
She conducts free self-defence classes in schools and colleges, talks about rape and its consequences, and boldly goes ‘where angels fear to tread.'
Single-handedly, one person at a time, this wonderful young woman is changing an entire generation for the better and helping them live without the debilitating, crippling sense of guilt that eats a person from within.
I felt my heart almost burst with pride and gratitude that day.
…
Such a tiny seed.
Such a rich harvest.
Stay blessed.
[image error]A Lesson in Survival was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
October 22, 2021
Underpass
I think the tree by the bus stop is dying.Not in the obvious way,but from the inside out.
