12 or 20 (second series) questions with Isabel Sobral Campos

Isabel Sobral Campos is the author of the poetry collection Your Person Doesn’t Belong to You (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2018), and the chapbooks Material (No, Dear and Small Anchor Press, 2015), You Will Be Made of Stone (dancing girl press, 2018) and Autobiographical Ecology (above/ground press, 2019). Chapbooks are forthcoming with Sutra Press and The Magnificent Field. She is the co-founder of the Sputnik & Fizzle publishing series.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

The poems of my first chapbook feel ethereal when I read them now, as if they are swimming toward something they never quite reach. That quality of reaching-toward is still present in my current work, and also the idea of poems as musical scores—each poem returns where other poems have been, not in a linear way but in a messy circuitous manner. My first chapbook was an unforgettable experience. The three women involved in its production, Alex Cuff, Jen Hyde, and Emily Brandt, were amazingly supportive. I have been very fortunate with the people I meant through publishing. Freddy LaForce from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press being another person with whom was very rewarding to work.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I tried writing fiction before poetry but always ended up fragmenting the writing, organizing it in vignettes. I arrived late to poetry (I think) perhaps because of writing creatively in a borrowed language. I didn’t think it would be possible. While I now know plenty of models for translingualism or bilingual writers, for a long time, I wasn’t aware of them. Furthermore, I had little understanding of contemporary Anglophone writing. So, one day I was reading Will Alexander’s Compression & Purity. I remember thinking “I’m just going to write whatever I want.” It sounds silly, but it was only then that I realized I had been tied to ideas about writing that didn’t excite me. I wrote my first poems shortly after.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I am a very slow writer. I have to write a bit every day. Otherwise, it won’t come at all. Usually, a manuscript results from being able to commit daily time to writing. If I study the idea too much or stop to take notes or research, or whatever, I often lose interest. So, I try to write as much as I can. Then I stop and rewrite quite a bit.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I tend to write long poems. I would say my first poetry collection is a long dramatic monologue divided into sections. The manuscript I am working on now, for example, is a musical score in two parts. So, I tend to write pieces that build on each other, echoing one another semantically and rhythmically.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Yes! I do. Readings allow me to hear my work more accurately. I wish I could read every week. 

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Writing has to be attentive to the ideological functions of words, tropes, languages. Poems should destabilize messages that have ossified and become corrosive. They should be attuned to the causticness of normative and normalizing conceptions. What normalizes a standard usually expresses the vision of a power group that oppresses. A poem has the capacity to withstand ideology.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I suppose writing uplifts attention from the mud of daily life. It zooms in on the experiential potential we all possess, but that keeps getting buried and neglected. Some books speak truths, so they actively oppose the harm of false, hateful ideas. Some books resurrect our ability to imagine and attempt transforming what oppresses us. Some books make us feel less lonely. I suppose there isn’t a single role but that they are all connected with achieving the best possible iteration of an embodied life.

Writers (whenever possible) should also try to promote other writers through publishing and reviewing. I recognize that this takes time, effort, as well as entails free labor.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I do not find working with editors difficult at all. I wish I had more opportunities to do so. I love to collaborate, and also, when others make me verbalize why I made certain choices.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

I am not sure whether I have a single piece of advice to share. I prefer to couch this question in terms of teachers. Anselm Berrigan taught me more than anyone, but it had something to do with the quiet and generous way he taught me to hear myself more clearly. He modeled listening very well.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I write in the mornings. It’s the first thing I do when I sit at my desk. As the day progresses, my mind feels cluttered with thoughts that interfere with writing.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

It depends on the project. I’ll read the books that have informed or inspired the work I am writing and re-read what I have in order to discover the flow of a particular project.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Eucalyptus trees.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Music and visual arts. I write in rhythmic forms. I am interested when poems and images coalesce with rhythms.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

The writing of Will Alexander, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Anselm Berrigan, Leslie Scalapino, Alice Notley, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, John Yau, Karl Marx, Divya Victor, Tonya Foster, and Brandon Shimoda, and many others.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I would like to translate, write performance pieces, and collaborate with other writers or artists.

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I can’t imagine being without books. I could be an archivist of some sort. I often wonder whether I shouldn’t be working in the non-profit activist world with environmental organizations or incarcerated people’s advocacy groups.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I feel that writing is part of me: it shapes me. I don’t think I ever felt like this toward any other activity.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Aditi Machado’s Some Beheadings blew me away! And also, Andrea Abi Karam’s Extratransmission. As for films, Paul Schrader’s First Reformed and Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I am working on a manuscript entitled How to Make Words of Rubble. What if the choral ode sections of Greek tragedy stood alone as form? This is one of the manuscript's formal premises. The other is the musical score. One night I dreamt that a sudden gust of wind stole my daughter away. I realized this dream was connected to news that another hurricane of unprecedented force was approaching the US. In the dream, I saw my daughter from the standpoint of my own disappearance. These poems emerged from this dream and these feelings. Grendel's mother from Beowulf became a helpful image to speak of maternal grief and the maternal body. Section II of the manuscript integrates old English words that capture the gist of how Grendel's mother is presented in the epic.

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