Sandra Moussempès: une poétesse en traduction

Amanda Murphy and I have been working behind-the-scenes on a co-translation of Sandra Moussempès’ Cassandre à bout portant, and this Friday we will be in conversation with Sandra herself and Lénaïg Cariou at La Maison de recherche, 4 rue des Irlandais, Paris 5ème, to dive into some of the most challenging and compelling moments of her collection and our translation process. Hope you’ll join us for the adventure.

Poetry Reading at La Fondation La Ruche-Seydoux

Hello Parisians, this Wednesday Verse of April is hosting a night of poetry at La Fondation La Ruche-Seydoux with readings from Mélanie Blaison, Lénaïg Cariou, Laure Gauthier, Alison Grace Koehler, Jason Stoneking, and myself. I hope you’ll join us. You can email verseofapril@gmail.com to reserve!

Launch Party for Loving Tallulah Bankhead

On Wednesday, October 5th, I will be celebrating the release of Loving Tallulah Bankhead at a private venue in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. The evening will begin at 18h with themed cocktails, Alabama-amuse-bouches, and live music by Sheldon Forrest. At approximately 19h, I will read a selection of poems from the collection. Throughout the evening, copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. Illustrator Lauren Patterson will be in town for one night only to sign books alongside me. If you are interested in reserving a spot on the guest list, please write to me. There are still a few places left.

Loving Tallulah Bankhead

I am ecstatic to announce the official publication of Loving Tallulah Bankhead. My book is now available in a standard edition and also in a limited special edition of 50 copies, numbered and signed by both myself and the illustrator. The limited special edition comes with a pendant featuring the original cover art as well as a copy of my handwritten letter to Tallulah. I am ever grateful to Lauren Patterson, illustrator extraordinaire who welcomed this collaboration with fierce and wondrous tenderness and touched it with pure magic, and to the beautiful rockstars of Paris Heretics who produced this collection with such attention and wisdom towards the “art object” that I’m ruined for anyone else! If you’re interested in purchasing a copy, please follow the link: http://www.carriechappell.com/books.

Lit Balm Reading with Arielle Greenberg, Kristin Sanders, and Bianca Stone

I am delighted to be reading this Saturday, August 6th at 5 p.m. (EST) with Arielle Greenberg, Kristin Sanders, and Bianca Stone. Please join us on Zoom! An open mic will follow.

"20" from QUARANTINE DAYBOOK

My whole time through Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood I felt a stirring, a spinning, a kind of leaping over of selves, through stratas of consciousness. After I finished her book, I felt I needed to spend more time with my thoughts on where our night souls and day persons meet each other, if they do. I started by going back to this poem I wrote in 2020. It is a beginnings-place, for the rest of the work I want to do in thinking about Nora Flood, Matthew O’Connor, Robin Vote, Felix Volkbein, and Jenny Petherbridge. Here is a performance of “20” from Quarantine Daybook.

Conversation with Paris Heretics at Marché de la Poésie

I am delighted to join L'Assaut des Poètes at the Marché de la Poésie on Thursday, June 9th to participate in a conversation led by Paris Heretics. Come hear myself and fellow Heretics artists Lesteria and Alison Grace Koehler discuss our relationship and forthcoming collaborations with this important creative label. We will begin at 14h30, Place Saint-Sulpice, stand 703.

"A Pregnancy of One's Own" in New Delta Review

“A Pregnancy of One’s Own” is an essay I wrote about my personal story of reproductive justice, and it is now published in New Delta Review’s 12.2. Thank you to Erin Little and the editorial team for giving it space and company.

"This Is God in Her Guts" in Yes The Void

I am grateful to Edwin Fagel at Yes The Void for giving an online home to "This Is God in Her Guts," a poem of mine that was originally published in #Firebrand, a print anthology of White Stag Publishing. This time around, she's paired with a photo I took of Sloss Furnaces in 2012 when I routed through my hometown to return to New Orleans after spending a summer leading writing workshops for young women at Bryn Mawr. The study of red is long.

"10" from QUARANTINE DAYBOOK

It’s been two years since these poems spoke up in me and a year since QUARANTINE DAYBOOK launched from Bottlecap Press. Thank you for cheering it and me on. Here is “10,” a ghazal written on the fringes of Easter.

Loving Tallulah Bankhead Forthcoming from Paris Heretics

I am very excited to announce that Loving Tallulah Bankhead, a collection of my Tallulah poems accompanied by illustrations from Lauren Patterson, is forthcoming from Paris Heretics. Here I am discussing the project with Jason Stoneking at La Fée Verte in March 2022.

Live Poetry Event in Tandem with Alison Grace Koehler's Stained Glass Show "De Verre en vers"

Pleased to be a part of this live poetry event that will feature work that responds to themes evoked in Alison Grace Kohler’s current show, “De Verre en vers.” I’m really looking forward to reading alongside Jamika Ajalon, Biba Ndiaye, Emily Ruck Keene, and Kristin Sanders and hearing a special bespoke text by Jason Stoneking! Join us this Friday, March 25th, at 19h at Espace Canopy (19 rue Pajol, 75018).

Now Available: Manuscript Consultations

I have missed interacting with and supporting writers "behind the scenes," so I am now offering manuscript consultations for a few time slots per month. With over 10 years of experience in literary editorship, I can help you recognize and focus the potential of your poems, prose, and hybrid compositions. More information about rates and packages is listed under “Editing” on my site. I look forward to hearing from you.

"3" from QUARANTINE DAYBOOK

Closing out 2021 and ringing in 2022 with a little at-home performance from Quarantine Daybook (Bottlecap Press 2021). Thank you for tuning in. A few more videos yet to come!

"15" from QUARANTINE DAYBOOK

In the coming weeks, I will be working on putting together a few performances and video poems of pieces from Quarantine Daybook. Here is “15,” recorded in May 2021 from my quarantine kitchen.

Featured Reader at Paris Lit Up

I’ll be reading from Quarantine Daybook on Thursday, July 22nd, as the featured artist at Paris Lit Up’s Open Mic night. Please come say hello, and, why not, sign up to share some of your own wordscapes!

QUARANTINE DAYBOOK Release

Quarantine Daybook is here, exactly a year after the strange spring that sighed it! I’m so delighted to share this work with you and look forward to hearing what you think—. If you’re in the U.S., you can order copies through the Bottlecap Press website. If you’re in France or Europe, you’ll soon be able to order directly from me and save yourself that fancy transatlantic shipping, so please write to me to reserve a copy.

I would like to thank you in advance for supporting my poetry! Once you have your copy, it would be beautiful to see a photo of it in your hands, by your face, at your desk, inside your sock drawer, beside your cat, among your high school trophies, up on the roof, along the windowsill, under your tangle of chargers, between the shower curtains, across your laundry pile, behind the coffeepot, atop your highest unreachable Tupperware, or next to the any anywhere that has been your trove or torment throughout the pages of your own quarantine.

A special shoutout to Baptiste de Chabaneix for being beside me in this project and in the cover design. Thank you, too, to Bottlecap Press Editor-in-Cheif Craig Mullins for believing in this collection.

"Here Is the Mark of the Girl" and "R-o-o-n-e-d" in Birdcoat Quarterly's Issue 4

"Rooned" was my word, was the pit of girlhood, styled with my native Southern moan. And it was a tongue pushed out of me, a voice to disinherit, in order to put on more romantic tellings. These two poems give some context to my unconventional spelling of “ruined” and offer story to a girlhood stressed with foregoing the native curiosity and wildernesses of a child in order to form her into a “Christian lady.”

Thank you to Editor-in-Chief Anna Sandy-Elrod and Poetry Editor Shannon Finck of Birdcoat Quarterly for giving these pieces some family in Issue 4. Read the whole issue here.

"Quarantine Daybook #7" in The West Review

I am wonderfully pleased to share the publication of "Quarantine Daybook #7." I would like to extend thanks to Jericho Brown for the inspiration of his invented form, the duplex (which combines ideas from the sonnet, the blues, and the ghazal). I quite enjoyed experimenting with this structure (though I cut some corners with the syllabics) in the strange domestic lab of lockdown. I am grateful to Despy Boutris, Editor-in-Chief, and Marissa Ahmadkhani, Assistant Editor, of The West Review, for giving my poem online family in Issue 3. Thank you for reading!

"Quarantine Daybook #6" in Sporklet 13 from Spork Press

April 2020 was a brief moment of fantasy and clarity for me in the unfolding hardships of the global pandemic. My home, my satellite, was at once shelter and maze, where I could lavish and languish in confrontations with a diminishing circuit. During this crystalline month, I was writing a poem a day with a dear group of bards. The Quarantine Daybook poems became my entries, my rhythm, my therapy, and I am happy now to have documented this period of looking out in wonder and horror through the lens of a domestic I’d never known.

I am pleased to share the publication of “Quarantine Daybook #6” in Sporklet 13 . Thank you to Guest Editor David Welch for including it. I hope you’ll read the full issue and discover work from Erin Adair-Hodges, Sara Afshar, Threa Almontaser, Jaswinder Bolina, Jen Frantz, Jeremy Allan Hawkins, Luther Hughes, Evan Nicholls, Aaron Sanderberg, and Katie Jean Shinkle. Also, check out the cover art erasure poem and illustration from Avni Vyas.

If you’d like to support Sporklet and Spork Press, you can purchase a PDF copy of the entire issue here for $1.