If you haven’t heard, Klio and our sister journal Kalliope have created a Youtube Channel! The channel, created by our Film Editor and Kalliope Liaison, Morgan Seiff, is a place to showcase the incredible video skills and creative talent of Penn State students and recent grads.
We are so excited to feature Liza Rose on our second video for the channel. This is our first “Artist Statement” video. Artist Statement is a new video series from Penn State’s creative arts magazines Klio & Kalliope, which lends our community of artists and writers a platform to showcase themselves and their work.
This video, produced and directed by Rose, is a look into her process and work as an artist, but it also features a reading of her poem “because there was nowhere to go that summer.”
Read Liza Rose’s poem published in Kalliope’s fall chapbook, Folio 2020:
“because there was nowhere to go that summer”
i went to the woods and discovered
that it is not nowhere— it was the only place
i could freely breathe, hemlock trees
accepting my air, i, accepting theirs—
no hesitance in this exchange, no fear,
just lungs and green leaves, a breathing between
the weeds— there is beauty in Pennsylvania creeper,
in climbing vines and ivy— here is a world untouched
by sickness— here is a girl untouched
by eyes— there is beauty in solitude, in discovering
the self in the quiet of the woods—
because there was nowhere to go that summer,
i went to my mind and discovered
that it is not nowhere— it is the only place
i can always be free.
Liza Rose is a poet and artist currently studying English at Penn State. She is best known for her poetry collection Motion as the Thing That Separates the Living From the Dead. When she is not creating art, she can most likely be found talking about Greek mythology, rap, and/or Avatar the Last Airbender.
Connect with Liza Rose:
If you enjoyed this video, don’t miss our first feature of Sebastian Paul Vargas’ pandemic-inspired film.
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