C.T. SALAZAR, AUTHOR OF AMERICAN CAVEWALL SONNETS
The Light Bulb is an interview series by The Lumiere Review. We’ve interviewed several authors of chapbooks to shed some light on the process of finding inspiration, drafting, revising, and publishing a chapbook. We believe in amplifying a diverse range of writers in the ever-expanding literary scene through this series. For writers who have their eyes set on publishing a chapbook, we hope that these conversations can bring you one step closer to a completed manuscript or a home with a press.
This time round, we have C. T. Salazar, author of American Cavewall Sonnets (Bull City Press, 2021). Support C.T. and his work by ordering a copy here.
I. MOTIVATION
First thing’s first, what motivated you to write your chapbook, American Cavewall Sonnets?
Honestly, restlessness. Carl Phillips has said restlessness is a form of ambition, and I think there’s so much truth in that. I wrote the first few poems that would become this chapbook in 2017, and I remember having so many disappointments in this country and our elected leaders—I didn’t know I was writing a chapbook at first, but the poems kept building. And eventually, I trusted myself to keep writing them, and started sending them to journals.
Could you elaborate on the themes, arcs, and/or journeys that define American Cavewall Sonnets?
The ways in which masculinity fails is in most of my writing, but it’s especially present in American Cavewall Sonnets. I have a lot of questions about grief too, and I think of these sonnets as kind of like shadow puppets (hence Cavewall) for what grief can look like. Love too, despite despair. Lots of my friends and loved ones are in these poems, and I hope my gratitude for their various spectacular-nesses is readable.
II. EXECUTION
Tell us about the way you sequenced the poems in your chapbook. What are some tips on finding a satisfactory order?
It was difficult to find an order for these poems. I wanted a narrative that was more about surviving despair than anything else, and I was suspicious of beginnings and endings as objects of easy comfort. My friends and the incredible Bull City Press editors all helped the printed order come to be, and I really think with their guidance the chapbook is in its best form.
What’s your writing process like?
I’m a very slow writer. Like two or three lines a week slow. And that’s when I’m in my “productive writing” mode. When I start writing, it’s usually for two or three months, followed by five or six months of just reading. This used to frustrate me, but in the last few years, I’ve learned this is my pace, and I’m happy with that. I try to soak in a lot from the masters and from my friends in my reading-heavy months, and then when I start writing—I like the care that goes into making just a few lines at a time. I write them out in notebooks and eventually a complete draft comes together.
Do different poems play separate roles in your chapbook? Do they drive the storyline, serve as transitions, or converse directly with the audience?
This is a really beautiful question. Five of the sonnets are dedicated to Mississippi and act like connective tissue to a cycle of sonnets I’m writing now. A good many of the “American Cavewall” sonnets revolve around a sister I never had the chance to meet, in which I imagine a childhood with her. I actually don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet to anyone. She show’s up here: “You shake the sun from your hair—I’ll wear your pearls. / All the trees of the field will clap their hands.” Some of the sonnets also imagine my parents, before I knew them, as young loves: “The map to heaven I made on my palm / smeared when I held your hand.”
III. REVISION
Writing’s one thing, but editing is a whole other domain. Once the first draft is complete, what are some suggestions on transitioning into revision?
For me, revision starts with a question of care and the intention of care. When I revise, I’m specifically revising against notions of reduction. Suspicion of reductivism is something I carry everywhere but especially to poems. Lines where I make the world one thing and one thing only get cut or revisited. Lines where I make someone I love one thing and one thing only get cut or revisited. I think it’s an injustice to the world to limit it, and I try to make sure my poems bring possibility and not constraints. Find what you care about and revise to that degree of care.
Could you share what your revision routine/process is like?
I love to revise out loud, because I think my ear catches things my eyes don’t. If there’s a space in the poem that needs more attention, my ears will hear it immediately, but multiple silent reads usually won’t. I trade drafts back and forth with a few friends, and trust what they think too.
IV. PUBLICATION
Where can we start when looking for chapbook presses?
I love small presses, because most often they’re the ones pushing poems that take risks and honestly change lives. Presses that I very biasedly love are Bull City Press and Animal Heart Press. I seek out presses that are publishing poets I already love to see who else I’ll fall in love with. I seek out presses run by editors I trust because of their diligent and careful work. Because of these reasons, here’s a few presses I’ll read anything from: Bull City Press, Animal Heart Press, Ethel Zine Press, Beloit Poetry Journal’s Chad Walsh chapbook series, Ghost City Press, Louisiana Literature, Sibling Rivalry Press, Pork Belly Press, Hyacinth Girl, YesYes Books, Variant Lit, Glass Poetry, Diode Editions, Damaged Goods Press.
Do you have any words of advice on submitting manuscripts to these presses?
Yes! Firstly take joy in knowing those editors will read your work with such attention and generosity. That you gave them your best, and they’re going to give you their best. As best you can, learn the work those presses are seeking to promote. Find a press you want to be a part of. Celebrate the writers they publish.
Following an acceptance from a press, what are the next steps?
Every press operates a little differently, but the next step is to listen to the editors’ ideas, aspirations, and goals for your work. If they’re publishing you, know they believe in you. Conversations about various kinds of revision ideas may be next, and publication schedules, and all kinds of joy.
C. T. Salazar is a Latinx poet and librarian from Mississippi. His debut full-length Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking is forthcoming from Acre Books in 2022. He’s the author of three chapbooks, most recently American Cavewall Sonnets (Bull City Press), and he’s the 2020 recipient of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in poetry. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Cincinnati Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Denver Quarterly, 32 Poems, and elsewhere.
Website: ctsalazarpoet.wordpress.com
Interviewed by Jessica Kim