BEHIND THE POEM

Courtney Kiolbassa ’18 wrote the poem “Apples” when she was a sophomore in college after her parents came to visit her for the weekend. Her mother immediately gathered up her dirty laundry, while her dad hopped in the car to buy her groceries. “I realized all the small ways my incredible parents showed their love for me, even though I sometimes forgot to call them or was too busy to drive home,” said Kiolbassa. “I started to see that love looks different for each person.”

While a student at Texas A&M, Kiolbassa was a National Merit Scholar, an inaugural Haynes Scholar, and the recipient of the Mary Pat and Michael J. Bolner ’73 President’s Endowed Scholarship. An English graduate, she has always believed in the power of storytelling and currently works in Dallas as a copywriter for Sherwood Fellows.

Her poetry aims to magnify single moments and experiences, a technique her elementary teacher called “explode-a-moment.” She searches for the hidden depths in ordinary, everyday interactions to make them extraordinary. In addition to poetry, Kiolbassa writes fiction and nonfiction and has an emerging interest in radio storytelling.