Video Interview with Paris Heretics

Thank you to the marvelous Paris Heretics for giving me the opportunity (with amazing backdrop) to speak about my poetics and artistic journey.

Guest on City of Muses from Paris Underground Radio

I was delighted to appear on City of Muses with Jennifer Geraghty on Paris Underground Radio. In this episode, we discussed translation, my poetics and obsession with alliteration, confronting the classism of conversations on artistic influence, and the beginnings of Loving Tallulah Bankhead. You can listen to the whole thing here.

Loving Tallulah Bankhead Reviewed at Alabama Writers' Forum

Loving Tallulah Bankhead was reviewed by Bee Baldwin for Alabama Writers’ Forum! That this book continues to touch readers in my home state is a dream come true.

“In this book, the relationship between poet and muse is tangible and intimate. Tallulah is a physical presence in the poems as she stands at the side of the speaker as they wear only pearls in the Alabama night (‘Tallulah Sits Beside Me on the Banks of the Cahaba River’), ride wild down Alabama highways and cartwheel like ‘nymphs’ in ‘Tallulah and I Drive the Hoop Skirt,’ and share a bath together in ‘Lifeboat.’ Tallulah Bankhead is ‘a haunted house.’ She acts as another voice in the poems, showing off her quick-as-a-whip wit and humor in many of the pieces: ‘Well, certainly Alabama isn’t all mud puddle! / Just look at me! Oh, Darling! Whatever chigger bit me, I bit back!’ Tallulah Bankhead is alive once again in Chappell’s poetry, untamed and boisterous as ever.”

You can read the entire review here.

Interview on Translation in Four Way Review

Thank you to Four Way Review and Translations Editor Marissa Davis for giving Amanda Murphy and me the opportunity to share so much about our personal and shared path in translation. Marissa asked us tough but illuminating questions! You can read the full interview here and find three poems from our translation of Sandra Moussempès’ Cassandre à bout portant in their newest issue.

Spiritual Material: My New Substack

Friends, I have been toying with the idea of starting a Substack for over a year now. The problem was always with what angle to take, with how to initiate a real-time writing project to which I could bring real-time passion. And have you real-time reading me. But I think I've found something.

Spiritual Material is my brainstormed result. I hope you'll come along.

You can sign-up below:

Loving Tallulah Bankhead in Screen Door Review: Literary Voices of the Queer South

When I read this review by Rachel Nix, I believe I felt an inner quiver. To be seen, in the self I bring to my work and that I brought to this text in particular, by this poet and editor is such an immense gift. Thank you, Rachel and Screen Door Review: Literary Voices of the Queer South, for embracing my collection. Love the beautiful shoutouts to Paris Herectis and Lauren Patterson within.

Paris Heretics Artists Traveling to The Netherlands

I’m delighted to be taking a bus to Rotterdam with my fellow Paris Heretics artists—Alison Grace Koehler, Lesteria, and Jason Stoneking—to join Uitgeverij Opwenteling and Yes The Void for the VoidVoices Poetry Festival in Rotterdam. We’ll be performing on March 18th with Dutch poets Edwin Fagel, Josse Kok, Joris Miedema, Arnoud Rigter, and Anouk Smies.

Then, on March 19th, we’ll be sharing poems in Utrecht at ACU.

Loving Tallulah Bankhead in the Southern Review of Books

“Loving Tallulah Bankhead is the perfect book not just for nonconforming Southerners, but for all who want to learn more about the darkness behind the South’s beauty: ‘We call upon our haunted / Sisters who have had to leave / To save their minds.’ It’s not just for ‘spooky, ruined women’ but for all rebels. Despite their similarities and their intimacy, Chappell’s Tallulah remains elusive as the scent of perfume, vague but still intoxicating. Her mystique is most potent when ultimately left unexplained and when instead her nemesis, the ugliness of patriarchy, is illumined with blinding light.”

I am touched to read this beautiful review of Loving Tallulah Bankhead written by Katharine Armbrester for the Southern Review of Books. That a fellow Alabama native found this work worth her time and attention is an absolute honor.

Loving Tallulah Bankhead Featured in the Daily Mountain Eagle of Jasper, Alabama

I am really grateful to Nicole Smith of Daily Mountain Eagle for this feature on Loving Tallulah Bankhead and the event at Tallulah Brewing Company tomorrow. Here are a few excerpts from the article and the link to read more!

Loving Tallulah Bankhead Featured on Yes the Void

I am very happy to share one of the poem-illustration pairings from Loving Tallulah Bankhead as featured on Edwin Fagel’s Yes the Void. It was a pleasure to meet him in person in Den Haag in November when Lauren Patterson and I were discussing the project at Colette Antiquariaat.

Guest on La Vie Créative Podcast

Thank you, Krystal Kenney of La Vie Creative Podcast, for having me on your show to talk about my Paris beginnings, poetry, and some of the process behind Loving Tallulah Bankhead! You can listen here.

Loving Tallulah Bankhead Goes to Alabama

I am incredibly honored to be taking this collection home for the holidays. I will be reading from Loving Tallulah Bankhead on Thursday, December 22nd in Birmingham at Burdock Book Collective and on Wednesday, December 28th in Jasper at Tallulah Brewing Company. I can’t wait to see you and to toast to Tallulah with my fellow Alabamians.

Loving Tallulah Bankhead in The Hague

I’m very excited to announce that Loving Tallulah Bankhead is traveling to The Hague next Wednesday, November 2nd, for a reading and discussion with book illustrator Lauren Patterson at Antiquariaat Colette & Co. If you are nearby, I hope you’ll join us.

Special Guest at SpokenWord Paris—Monday, October 17th

I’m very pleased to be special guesting Spoken Word Paris this Monday, October 17th. I’ll be reading from my new book, Loving Tallulah Bankhead (Paris Heretics 2022). Hope to see you there, Au Chat Noir.

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.