Chel Campbell

KTQ: We are a history focused journal, so we’d love to start off with a bit about your history. Can you tell us about your background?

CC: I’ve lived on the High Plains in South Dakota for most of my life, enduring hot, wet summers and bitter winters. We’re pretty rural, a flyover state. For context, I live in Sioux Falls, which boasts a population of over 200,000 people. The next two largest towns have 78,000 and 28,000 people. As you might imagine, we don’t have a robust literary culture, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t poets here. There are dozens of us! Dozens! But I’ve grown to love living in Sioux Falls, and one of my life goals is to get more involved in the local literary scene, help it grow, and bring poets and writers into the art and music spaces that are more established here. The arts are struggling everywhere right now, so we need to team up.

KTQ: How does living in Sioux Falls influence your work? Do you think there are advantages to living outside of or away from the mainstream literary hubs?

CC: Much of my work involves landscape, particularly how we move through it (whether natural or unnatural). Since towns are quite spread out here, you almost have to use a car to get around, and I quite accidentally found that many of my poems take place in a car. There's a nostalgic aspect to it. When I was a teenager, we'd drive around at night in our crappy cars, smoke cigarettes, and get into all sorts of trouble. Trouble makes good fodder for poetry.

While we're not brimming with literary opportunities, there are pockets if you know where to look! I got my start at the University of South Dakota (in a different town) and was lucky to participate in graduate level poetry workshops with Lee Ann Roripaugh, our state poet laureate at the time. My friends and colleagues would host open mic nights in bar basements, and there was a cozy sense of community there.

KTQ: So, what does your dream literary community look like? What would you want from it and what do you think the literary community should provide to those within it?

CC: A few months ago, I started a digital zine (MEMEZINE) which seeks art and literature about life in (or influenced by) the digital landscape. We've got some plans for chapbooks down the road, but locally, I'd love to get more people involved in analog zine-making. Maybe the whole literary scene could benefit from a resurgence in DIY literature. I'm not suggesting we support predatory pay-to-play presses, but rather I think there's something really special about making books with our own hands. Someday I'd love to start a non-profit distro in town where people can make and sell their books. As much as we might not like to admit it, literature is still another cog in the capitalist machine. Wouldn't it be beautiful to inch closer to the words we labor over by bringing them to life ourselves?

KTQ: I’d love to talk about process. What is your process like? How does a poem begin for you?

CC: Some of my hobbies involve thrifting, foraging, and collaging. What I collect in my outer world also reflects my creative process. I gather experiences and information, and I wish I could tell you I have an organized method of doing this, but it’s chaotic. I’ll take pictures or jot ideas down in notebooks, receipts, journals, sketchbooks, word docs, my notes app—I’ll use whatever I have on-hand. I don’t leave anything out as potential inspiration, either—I’ll look back on old tweets, shopping lists. I’ll make a list of the garbage I had to pick up that blew into my backyard. I’ll jot down a few sentences of a conversation between friends when I’m out in public. Most of the experiences I collect won’t make it into a poem, but it’s wonderful to have my own little chaos library for reference and inspiration.

For example, I have notes in the app titled “buy a new mattress?” which appears next to another note that says “Being honest about our needs doesn’t have to come from a place of anger and frustration. It can come from a place of love, desire, and pleasure,” which appears next to another note with a title idea: “portrait of a poet in burnout.” These notes were written across several months with no other intention than getting an idea written down. But now that I look at these notes again, I see something taking shape. My role as a poet is to weave it together.

KTQ: Is there anything you've found or jotted down that you've really wanted to incorporate into a poem but haven't been able to turn into a piece? If so, what was it?

CC: A few months ago, I cut open an orange bell pepper and there was a cold, dead caterpillar inside. I immediately felt like this was a moment worth writing about. Since I had things to do, I took a picture in order to be able to describe it later. But I'm stuck. I still have the picture, but it almost feels wrong to have taken it. All I can say is, look, here's a thing that lived and died deliciously. May we be so lucky.

KTQ: Some poets edit and edit and edit, some write everything down at once and never touch a word. What is the process of revision like for you? How much is a poem an organic occurrence and how much of the writing actually happens in editing?

CC: I might be in the minority, but I love the editing process. For me, the “organic occurrence” you mention is like a door. When a person, place, object, event inspires a new poem, I do my best to capture it in writing, in as much detail as possible with the methods I mentioned previously. Then this writing becomes an entrance into the poem itself. I tinker, collage, and experiment with words and sounds until I figure out what the poem actually wants or needs to say. Or not say.

KTQ: Unlike most other literary mediums, poetry isn’t just about the words, it’s about form. What do you think the role of form is in poetry? How do you choose what form a poem will take?

CC: When I started writing poetry in graduate school, I’ll admit that I was intimidated by form. I felt called to write poetry, to explore my own personal traumas, but I didn’t feel like I knew enough about form. Imposter syndrome set in, yet at the same time I was also worried that form would constrict my creativity. As an early poet, I didn’t understand why a sonnet should only have fourteen lines, and I certainly didn’t want to write like Shakespeare (as if I even knew how). Thank goodness for fellow poets, mentors, and workshops…and the existence of free verse.

As I continued studying poetry and gained confidence in my abilities, I realized that form isn’t a cage. Rather, it’s a key to unlocking new ideas I may not have otherwise considered. So yeah, maybe I’m writing lines that are absolute bangers, but how do they grow and change if I rework them into iambic pentameter? If the poem only has fourteen lines, what words will have the most impact? which syntax? Exploring form is a type of literary foraging that gives hints on where to look. There are delicious little things under the leaves.

KTQ: Do you have any themes that you find yourself returning to again and again?

CC: Even though I am not religious and haven’t identified as such since I moved away from home, I often write about the sacred, the holy. I grew up in a devout Protestant household where family members claimed they could speak in tongues and had seen angels. When I was a child, the earth was only a few thousand years old. I stepped on sharp thistle because of Eve’s betrayal. I sinned every day. I buried my head under my covers every night because I thought I could hear demons sneaking around my room. God was something to love and fear, and yet god was completely abstract to me. How am I supposed to love something I can’t touch? How do I soothe my anxious heart when I’m lying alone in the dark?

The themes I return to again and again aim to reverse what I felt as a spiritually lost child. Poetry compels me to shape what I love into something concrete. Poetry gives me permission to abstract my fear.

KTQ: If you don't mind sharing, what was the experience of moving away from that kind of religious devotion like?  What was your relationship to literature when you were still deeply religious?

CC: Well, there were quite a few cultural phenomena that I missed out on, and my relationship to literature was sometimes fearful. I remember reading James and the Giant Peach when I was maybe 8 or 9 in the room my sister and I shared. I was shocked at the caterpillar who says "ass," like, on every page. I think that was the first time I ever swore, too, which was not allowed in our house. My sister was in the room too, so I whispered "ass" into the book, terrified she would hear me and tattle. Still, even though I felt brave enough to try swearing, I was so scared my mom would catch me reading it, I grabbed a sharpie and censored every ass I stumbled on. But then the ink bled through, and I was heartbroken at ruining my book. I still blacked out the words, though. And I did end up finishing it.

Leaving religion behind was surprisingly easy. I stopped going to church as soon as I moved out and went to school. After finally having the power to choose, I realized I could also choose not to believe in hell anymore. Even though I lost connection to a huge part of my culture, I never felt my heart was truly in it, and it was well worth it to let go of my fear.

KTQ: Every writer deals with things like writer’s block or rejection at some point. It’s just the unpleasant truth of being creative and putting your creativity out there. Have you experienced these things? Do you have any tools or advice for when these aspects of being a writer come up?

CC: Don’t be afraid of rejection! If you make friends with it, it will become your greatest ally. If this sounds scary at first, dull its sting by giving it a name or make it a game. Treat rejection as a chance to reward yourself for getting the work out there. Last year, I made a goal to have my writing rejected 100 times, which I achieved. I put a sticker on a chart after every single “unfortunately.” I bragged about my rejections online. When people see you fail, it’s so much easier to handle when you’re in control of it. Rejection and failure become way less scary when you are open about it on the same level as your success. I tried and I failed, but dammit, I’m going to keep going! I’ve got grit, I’m tough as hell, just try and stop me! And then all of a sudden, you land that dream publication, or that book deal, or you find that community of writers, poets, and artists who are in your corner and cheering you on.

As for writer’s block, I treat it as a sign that I need to go out and collect more experiences and expand my chaos library. I feel like our lives should mostly consist of experience. After all, you can’t write about life if you’re not out there living it. I try not to stress if I’m less-than-prolific or stuck in a rut. So much of my life is spent not-writing, and that’s more than okay. I am observing and taking notes. I am spending time with people I love and making good food for us. I am getting that tattoo. I am watching silly movies while shopping online for a new mattress. I am exhausted and grieving. I am holding someone’s hand in the dark. Living a life with intention is also a poem.

KTQ: And lastly, what books are in your personal poetry canon?

CC: A few essential texts to my poetry (that aren’t poetry) are Hélène Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” and the Book of Genesis. Some poetry books in my personal canon are as follows (in no particular order):

1. frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss

2. The Unswept Room by Sharon Olds

3. When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen

4. Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar

5. Ariel by Sylvia Plath