Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2015

Abstract

As one of many Arcadia students who have elected to spend a semester abroad, I still find myself digesting my experiences in Cork City, Ireland in many facets of my daily life. Processing my own cultural acclimation has been, at times, a struggle to comprehend. The following poems represent similar processes of both American and international students. While the circumstances of each student vary, their perceptions of ever-changing cultural stimuli have remarkable connections. Questions of identity, personal development, and transcending social nuances arose in a variety of ways with my participants. My aim was to craft those similarities and differences into a poetic context that will voice experiences in a way that is mutually resonating with any reader, no matter their cultural background. By using ethnographic methods of obtaining data (i.e. interviews, field notes, transcription analysis) as well as my own subjective experiences in Ireland, I was then able to use creative license to approach a raw, sensory exploration of their transient experiences.

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