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    Now Go Out There: (and Get Curious)
    Now Go Out There: (and Get Curious)
    Now Go Out There: (and Get Curious)
    Ebook112 pages17 minutes

    Now Go Out There: (and Get Curious)

    By Mary Karr

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    About this ebook

    A celebration of curiosity, compassion, and the surprising power of fear, based on the New York Times bestselling author and renowned professor’s 2015 commencement address at Syracuse University.

    “Being smart and rich are lucky, but being curious & compassionate will save your ass.”

    Every year there are one or two commencement speeches that strike a chord with audiences far greater than the student bodies for which they are intended. In 2015 Mary Karr’s speech to the graduating class of Syracuse University caught fire, hailed across the Internet as one of the most memorable in recent years, and lighting up the Twittersphere.

    In Now Go Out There, Karr explains why having your heart broken is just as—if not more—important than falling in love; why getting what you want often scares you more than not getting it; how those experiences that appear to be the worst cannot be so easily categorized; and how to cope with the setbacks that inevitably befall all of us. “Don’t make the mistake of comparing your twisted up insides to other people’s blow-dried outsides,” she cautions. “Even the most privileged person in this stadium suffers the torments of the damned just going about the business of being human.”

    An ideal—and beautifully designed—gift for a graduate or for anyone looking for some down-to-earth life advice, Now Go Out There is destined to become a classic.

    Editor's Note

    Inspiring…

    Mary Karr’s celebrated 2015 commencement speech at Syracuse University goes up there with the greats. Incredibly inspiring and full of honest truths and compassionate hopes, it’s a perfect read no matter when your last class was.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateApr 5, 2016
    ISBN9780062442109
    Now Go Out There: (and Get Curious)
    Author

    Mary Karr

    Mary Karr is an acclaimed poet. Her memoir, The Liars’ Club , won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award. She is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University.

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      Book preview

      Now Go Out There - Mary Karr

      NOW GO OUT THERE

      My goal in high school was to stay out of the penitentiary, so if I can go from there to standing up here, y’all can all get yourselves gainful employment of some kind.

      Yes, those are your parents clapping.

      When I told my pal Doonie I was getting an honorary doctorate, he quipped, Being a doctor who can’t write prescriptions is like being a general in the Salvation Army.

      This made me a few notches less terrified about today, which is how poetry works—you start in a scared place and get zip-lined somewhere truer.

      The real purpose of poetry, W. H. Auden said, is disenchantment. Not throwing fairy dust in your eyes. It’s stripping away what’s false so you can see what’s true underneath. I like to say poetry has to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.

      So I’ll start with a Mother’s Day

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