Chelsea Dingman is a Canadian citizen and Visiting
Instructor at the University of South Florida. Her first book, Thaw, was chosen by Allison Joseph to
win the National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press, 2017). In 2016-17,
she also won The Southeast Review’s
Gearhart Poetry Prize, The Sycamore
Review’s Wabash Prize, and Water-stone
Review’s Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. Her work can be found in Ninth Letter, The Colorado Review, Mid-American
Review, Cincinnati Review, and Gulf
Coast, among others. Visit her
website: chelseadingman.com.
1 - How did your first book
change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How
does it feel different?
My first
book allowed me to discover my voice as a poet. I don’t think we ever know what
kind of poet we are since that is always changing, but it allowed poetry to be
something more concrete for me. Having a book only feels different because
people are able to access my work without me being present, if that makes sense.
I still read and write everyday as though I hadn’t finished a book. I am always
working toward whatever poem is currently in my head.
2 - How did you come to
poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I came to
poetry by accident. I thought that I would be a prose writer. I was forced to
take a poetry grad class several years ago. Part way through the semester, I
realized that I would much rather play with a line in a poem for hours than
sustain a narrative over pages and pages. It seems to be the way my brain is
wired: I love language. To play with language all day is pure joy.
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 write
very quickly and generate a lot of work. I tend to overwrite: for every poem
that I’m confident about, I generally wrote three poems to get there. I think
that’s because I’m not usually satisfied with the first thing I’ve written and
I obsess on one occasion until it comes out the way I want it to. I don’t set
out to write project books: I just write and gather the threads from my poems
later. I have written one project manuscript, but it was the most difficult
thing I’ve done because I had to map it out and it felt forced until I figured
out how to structure it and make it move like a book of poetry moves.
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?
A poem
begins with an occasion that demands to be written in most cases. Sometimes, it
begins with a great line that I can’t get out of my head. I usually hear the
music last and try to follow the sounds while I’m writing. I think this is
because I’m a visual learner. I’ve talked to several auditory learners who do the
opposite. I write whatever I want to write or research and then I look for ways
that the work fits together later. Usually, after writing thirty poems or so,
the larger threads start to emerge.
5 - Are public readings
part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who
enjoys doing readings?
Public
readings that I attend have been part of my process. I had not given many
readings before my book came out. I enjoy the poetry community at readings: I
love the questions about the work, talking about poetry and teaching, and
working with other writers. I love the way that builds community faster than
anything else I’ve been part of and poets are a really generous and supportive
group, for the most part.
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?
I’m not
sure that I’m trying to answer any questions in my work. I tend to believe that
writing to those realizations is better fitted for creative non-fiction. In
poetry, we are writing out of the realizations that we already have. But, if
you are referring to the uncertainty in poetry, then I do write out of
uncertainty constantly. Unanswerable questions tend to be the ones that I
obsess over. In my work, these uncertainties cover so many things: life, death,
faith, love. Ordinary everyday questions, such as where the socks from the
dryer go. Political uncertainties, as have arisen in so many powerful poems in
the last year or two.
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 often
go back to Anais Nin’s quote: the role of the writer is not to say what we can
all say, but what we are unable to say. I believe that it is even more
important for writers to say anything in the current cultural climate and for a
massive range of voices to be heard. We need to hear an array of experiences to
encourage empathy, but also to force people to take action and accountability.
A writer is a great tool. The written word is powerful and lasting.
8 - Do you find the process
of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I haven’t
worked with an outside editor. I have only worked with trusted readers. Trusted
readers are a staple for poets and an essential part of the process. I don’t
trade poems anymore, necessarily, but I definitely need someone who cares about
my work to read it when I think I have a manuscript near completion.
9 - What is the best piece
of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Writers
write. It’s not about awards and books. Shut out the noise and do the work.
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 begin
by reading. I love that part of the day. I read a lot in the mornings. I like
to write afterward. If I’m teaching early, I read and write when I get home. I
try to write everyday, though it’s not always work I polish. Just as an
exercise.
11 - When your writing gets
stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)
inspiration?
I read.
Essays. Poems. Interviews by other writers that might trigger something. Some
writers give such wonderfully lyric answers to questions that it makes me want
to write. I also turn to my life: occasions I have shelved in my brain for
later that I wanted to write. It might be something that I experienced, but
often it’s something that I witnessed. Sometimes, it’s even a movie or
documentary.
12 - What fragrance reminds
you of home?
Pine
trees. I grew up in the B.C interior. They were ever-present.
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?
I love
history, nature, and science. I love to incorporate all of those things in my
poems, depending on what I am writing. The various landscapes that my speakers
move through are so important in terms of informing their inner landscapes, so
nature is prevalent. I’ve written a whole manuscript concerned with history:
the emigration of Ukrainian citizens to Canada in the second wave (1924).
Landscapes play a large role in those poems also. I just finished a manuscript
about infertility and stillbirth, in which I used science-based research.
14 - What other writers or
writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Writers
I’ve worked with who are essential to my work are John A. Nieves (my most
trusted reader) and Jay Hopler (all-round genius human). Traci Brimhall is
another writer that I worked with on my thesis and she taught me quite a few
things in a very short time. Heather Sellers has been a wonderful resource for
both writing and teaching. Outside of my work, my cohort at the University of
South Florida is amazing: I learn so much from simple discussions of writing.
15 - What would you like to
do that you haven't yet done?
Write the
poem that I want to write. That sounds strange, but I feel like I will forever
be writing toward that elusive poem that I feel is successful, but is not
possible because there is no ceiling in writing. Writers spend our lives
writing to get better at writing. Or to write something different than we’ve
already written, while acquiring new skills.
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 think I
still would have been a teacher. I love it. It is really rewarding to work with
the students that I have had the opportunity to work with.
17 - What made you write,
as opposed to doing something else?
I tried
doing other things for a long time. I changed my undergrad major many times. I
kept coming back to writing because it’s what I love. I want to spend my life
this way. I can’t imagine not reading and writing anymore, even if it is just
for myself.
18 - What was the last
great book you read? What was the last great film?
Film: I
have young kids, so my husband and I don’t usually get to watch films anymore.
We watched Gifted as a family recently and everyone enjoyed that.
19 - What are you currently
working on?
I am
currently doing research on traumatic brain injury and writing poems that are
concerned with memory: what we can live with remembering, what we can’t live
with remembering, what we cannot remember & how to live with that. Brain injury
is something that hasn’t been written about enough and it affects many people
in my husband’s former profession, so I feel a sense of urgency about it. I’m
just writing to see where that takes me right now.
