Q & A with Rachel Small

Rachel Small, author of Where Do We Go From Here?, answers some of our questions.

Recently, Whispering Wick got the chance to ask Rachel Small our burning questions about her and her chapbook, Where Do We Go From Here?

Where Do We Go From Here? is a poetry collection defined by the early days of the pandemic and human connection, as well as Rachel's own personal experiences. It touches on climate change, the pandemic, capitalism, greed, womanhood, and so much more. The collection is available in our bookstore.

Read on to hear about Rachel's inspirations, her writing process, and more.

What was the inspiration behind your chapbook?

I came across Conyer Clayton’s poem ‘Google Doc of Death’ and it really hit me. I wrote the first poem inspired by the conversation regarding the body after death and the narrative it holds. After that piece, I just kept writing and writing and assembling a small collection of poetry.

Usually, I favour topics like true crime. When I got to the end of this, I was almost disappointed because I couldn’t see any telltale markers that made it familiar to me. But, after I reread the mess that I wrote, I realized for the first time how anxious I felt about 2020 and Covid-19. I don’t think it really hit me until I started to understand what I was writing, which makes this collection a really personal adventure away from what I knew and loved.

What is your favourite poem in your collection and why?

Honestly, it would have to be ‘It’s Cause I Was Born In _____’. For a while, I was super into tarot-inspired poetry pieces, but my Twitter feed exploded with horoscope-based pieces for a while. It was something I wasn't ever into or knew a whole lot about, so I spent a while going over actual columns to try and mimic the fit. Some of the entries I wrote thinking about people I loved so it has a fun personal touch. I also had to triple-check spelling just to ensure that I had it all down because I had this weird stress that I would end up misspelling Sagittarius and look like a millennial fraud.

What was the writing process for your chapbook? What does your usual writing process look like?

I write sporadically lately. I wish I was one of those people that could sit down two hours a day and get the words out, but my typical work schedule is twelve-hour shifts that I’ll work in a set before I have a few days off, and then I flip around to another couple of twelve-hour shifts. I try to write down little notes when I’m at work and I carry a notebook around to get out rough drafts. When I have the time, I sit down and I’ll type it out just to try and make it more finished.

When I read Clayton’s poem, I was staying up all night to flip onto overnights. I spent almost the entire night writing, completely inspired by her writing. It was a really fun experience and I loved the outcome. I spent a few days after going over it a bit longer before I was fully satisfied.

Everyone has a distinct style and there are many writers we can recognize just from the way they form a sentence or create an image. What would you say is a trademark of your writing that will make anyone read it and say, “That’s Rachel Small”?

I wish I had something more distinctive. Usually, though, I’ll try to reference sugar spoons in my writing. That shows up in the first poem of this collection.

Last summer I was getting really frustrated with my writing. I was working a job that was killing my ability to write and what I was actually managing to get down came across as immature and not great. I submitted one piece to a magazine and was feeling really discouraged about the process until I got the most beautiful email back from the editor, Stuart, who gave me so much support. It was this weird poem about dead girls and sugar spoons and it eventually turned into a little flash fic that was published along with the original poem. A couple of months later, he made me a skull-shaped sugar spoon that I’m absolutely obsessed with, which is why I try to sprinkle the reference in when I can.

What was the editing process like for your chapbook?

So much fun! I never had anyone to talk about my poetry with. Usually, it was either a rejection or an acceptance, not really a full conversation. It was really nice to talk to Nathanial and explain why I used certain words intentionally, and we got to collaborate on a few changes. I really loved the experience.

There are many motifs throughout your chapbook. The colour red, coffee, the number seven, and burning imagery are significant ones. What do these motifs mean to you?

Coffee was pretty intentional. I had been a supervisor at Starbucks when Covid-19 began and it was a really weird experience of being labeled as an essential worker when all we did was make luxury coffee. The majority of my working life has been spent in and out of coffee shops, which is where I’ve made most of my friends and I’ve been able to witness a weird balance of capitalism profit and how so many people struggle to exist when they make so little. To me, coffee is a luxury symbol and I like playing around with the idea of it.

Red was a colour I picked back from the wildfires in California that turned the sky red and seven is based on the uninteresting fact that it’s one of my favourite numbers.

You also run a press: Splintered Disorder Press. Tell us some more about what you do there and the press itself.

Unfortunately, that press is on hiatus at the moment, but it was a really fun experience to work on long-distance with my best friend. She and I met when we were assigned rooms in residence across from one another and basically stuck together all the way through university. The anthology project that we worked on was a really neat project to commit to, and it let us show off the different publishing skills we’ve learned to each other. However, she works regular daylight hours and is always busy, and I work vampire hours so we just didn’t have the flexibility to commit to a second project, unfortunately. Hopefully in the future we can manage more!

Is there anything exciting coming down the pipeline that you can tell us about?

I’m currently working on a new collection titled ‘The Party Is Over’ that I’m really excited about. I’m trying to include topics like body presented in media and environment, but also ideas like toxic masculinity and reputation. Last August I was put into a really uncomfortable situation in my personal life and it really changed how I viewed somebody, so that has a new element to my writing. I’m trying to put to words how frustrating it is to put down boundaries to preserve a relationship and having to fight off a narrative that I didn’t ask to be in.

There are a lot of references to climate change and the pandemic in the chapbook. What draws you to these subjects?

End of February I was reading a lot of Corporate Starbucks news updates and they had a big article on the reopening of store locations across China. This was the first time I had heard of Covid-19 and that China had been on a lockdown, and I was really frustrated reading the article that featured so many voices of corporate employees, but not a single quote from a barista about their experience. I didn’t care how stressful it was for somebody to make the call to close down stores, comfortable with their job security and high pay status. I was interested in what a regular person felt like and what their emotional experience was at the reopenings.

By mid-March, it was happening in Canada and I felt so guilty going to work and being part of a problem. Starbucks was actively promoting products and deals to draw people out of their houses and break lockdown, and I feel like it really manipulated a lot of people on both ends. I also got to witness my manager harass employees into coming to work so she didn’t lose money and push us to break Covid-19 guidelines for the sake of business. I had a really weird place to fill during the pandemic and I didn’t love the experience. It wasn’t until I got a job somewhere else that I felt like it would be okay.

Climate change was interesting during 2020 because in some places it actually got better due to how isolated the population got and fewer carbon emissions, but we also had disasters like wildfires. The responsibility of climate change is somehow always put on the ‘regular’ person, but big businesses constantly buy their way out instead of spending the money to make eco-positive changes.

What life experiences, if any, have shaped the way you write poetry?

I know what it is like to be around unsafe people. The best and worst moments of my life happened in Ottawa, and I think that location especially has a big role in my writing. There are certain neighbourhoods or streets I cannot forget about because I still remember what happened or who still lives there. So, when I write, I think about being in the country outside of Ottawa and how separate it feels, or how overwhelming it sometimes felt living in the city. Some of that is what influenced me into the true crime genre, but also my education taught me how exploitative the subject is, and how it feeds off of a particular kind of person, ignoring women of colour. I try to keep that in mind when I’m writing, so I don’t glamourize a subject that already has far too much glamour, and I also mind my own privilege of being a white woman.

Here’s a big one: what sparked your interest in writing and publishing?

My mom used to take me to these writing workshops when I was a kid growing up and I would spend the entire time listening to authors talk about their craft. I wanted to be just like them so I was always writing and reading. At Carleton University I did a minor in English, which I was behind on for credit, so I took a summer writing fiction workshop which was really inspiring. I got to write this really weird alien conspiracy love story and I realized that was exactly what I wanted to do, so I looked up options in the area and found Algonquin College hosted a Professional Writing program. From there, I got to blend creative writing with a mix of professional writing and publishing, which is how I got interested in poetry.

Thank you Rachel for answering our questions. We loved getting to hear more about you and your chapbook.

About Rachel Small

Rachel Small is a writer born and raised outside of Ottawa, Ontario. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, the winnow magazine, Ample Remains, Northern Otter Press, bywords magazine, and Handwritten & Co. She was the 2019 honourable mention for the John Newlove Poetry Award and the recent winner of Handwritten & Co. and Gypsophila Magazine Writing Contest. You can find her on twitter @rahel_taller.

Where Do We Go From Here? is available right now. You can order your copy here.

Click on the tags below to see more posts about Rachel and her chapbook.