Catching Up with Kara Dorris

Where can we read some of your recent work? 

Cover of "When the Body is a Guardrail" by Kara Dorris

Check out my poem “The Baby Sloth Syndrome” at DIAGRAM or

my brand new poetry collection When the Body is a Guardrail at Finishing Line Press!

My website, karadorris.com, has links to everything!

What are you reading right now?

Currently I’m reading About Us: Essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times (2019) and Dead Man’s Float by Ruth Foley (Sundress Publications,2019). 

The essays in About Us are eye-opening yet sadly familiar which makes the anthology a great introduction to the world of disability. Each essay, no more than 3-4 pages, offers a unique and powerful perspective and gives voice to the voiceless, those who are often forgotten and lost or openly ignored.  

The poems in Dead Man’s Float are beautiful and intimate, navigating literal and emotional waterways, leaving nothing and no one to dry, steady land. Like the tide, these poems return over and over to the question: can you have hope when drenched in loss? And the answer is: Yes. Yes, you can, but you will have to get your feet wet. 

What’s next for you?

My brand new poetry collection When the Body is a Guardrail at Finishing Line Press just came out this August! So, it’s time to start promoting…

You can read a few poems at Heron Tree and Rising Phoenix!

My first prose chapbook, Carnival Bound [or, please unwrap me] co-written with Gwendolyn Paradice, is forthcoming this fall from The Cupboard Pamphlet. You can read a few stories at Wordgathering!

Kara Dorris

Bio: 

Kara Dorris is the author of two poetry collections from Finishing Line Press: Have Ruin, Will Travel (2019) and When the Body is a Guardrail (2020). She has also published five chapbooks, including the forthcoming Carnival Bound [or, please unwrap me] (The Cupboard Pamphlet, 2020) co-written with Gwendolyn Paradice. For more information, please visit karadorris.com.