Elisabet Salas’ collection, THE CHAOS INSIDE ME, is a fantastic poetry work, published due to her fantastic following on social media and it has been a great hit. It’s a testament of love, and the stretches of what poetry can be. With this interview, we talked about the process of self-publishing her book, gatekeeping in poetry circles, and what’s next for her.
You've self-published your poetry collection, THE CHAOS INSIDE ME, thanks to the following you've garnered on social media as well as your powerful words. How has that process been like for you?
The entire process- from deciding to write it and then pursuing self publishing to the aftermath of self promoting, has been a wild ride. It's been difficult to say the least. There were a lot of challenges I hadn’t foreseen and some I wish I could redo. It was also very stressful, self promoting drained me emotionally and was very discouraging on my low days but I do not for a second regret choosing to self publish despite the difficulty of it all.
How has community helped you in your writing journey?
The community both the book community and the writing community have been invaluable. I've learned so much and derived so much support from them. This entire ordeal would have been miserable and so much more emotionally taxing if I didn’t have these people and their support in my life. They encouraged me in my low points where I felt like I couldn’t or wasn’t enough for this. They reassured me and mentored me when I felt lost. Without them I don’t think I could have gone through with publishing.
There are a lot of conversations that boil down to gatekeeping within the poetry genre, around who deserves to be called a poet and what poetry is. I believe it's such an ephemeral genre that shouldn't be tied down to one definition, but what does poetry mean to you?
There are many who want to define what is or isn’t poetry, but to me poetry is a form of expression. Poetry has been an outlet for me, a way to express and explore who I am in this world. It has allowed me to dig deep into what makes me me and what drives me. To try to limit that is ridiculous. The gatekeeping is what kept me from thinking I could write poetry until my 20s.
Even though you write about love and friendship, you also tackle subjects such as identity, abuse, trauma, and mental health. What makes poetry such an effective format with which to convey these topics?
For me, poetry allows me to explore these topics in a much more personal and accessible way. Poetry cuts out the world and allows me to focus on myself and the words I want to speak or hear. It is more accessible in the way that it ‘simplifies’ these emotions. It cuts straight to the heart of them, as opposed to longer literary works or even academic works.
You have free reins to collab with another Latinx creative and they’re free and on board as well, who are you picking and what are you making?
Oh this is a difficult question, but I would love to collaborate with Sabrina Sol or Zoey Castile or Gretchen Gomez to name a few. I admire their work so much.
How does your identity affect your writing?
My identity affects my writing in the way that it shapes how I view the world. It reflects how I view the world through the lenses of a qwoc and a child of immigrants. These experiences have and will affect everything around me; and because without them I wouldn't be myself.
Who do you write for?
I write primarily for myself, to make sense of all the thoughts and emotions coursing through me. There are times I write and then erase what I wrote because I just needed to articulate a feeling or talk to myself about a situation. But I also write for others like me who grew up in a household that didn’t or doesn’t understand mental health and that this culture shock of being the first in your family in different ways affect your experiences, and to let them know they aren't alone or broken.
Is there a piece of media (book, TV, movie, etc) created by a Latinx that has helped shape your creativity?
I was unwillingly naive to content created by Latinx folx when I was young, since so much of the media I consumed was for white audiences (this excludes content like telenovelas and music I grew up with) I discovered creators later on in my life. One of my early influences was Guillermo Del Toro and the movie Pan's Labyrinth, with its usage of monsters and the ideas behind good and evil. It allowed me to think more broadly about how I could tell stories. But Gretchen’s poetry collection (sadly no longer available to purchase online) Love, and You inspired me and gave me the push I needed to publish my collections.
Shoutout a Latinx writer or creator whom you admire!
Shoutout to Sabrina Sol, Zoey Castile and Gretchen Gomez. I love their work so much!
Anything you can share about your upcoming projects?
I have a new poetry collection in the works called “A Portrait of Sunflowers” out early next year. It's a reflection of the last decade and a half of my life, told with a bit of the magical realism I grew into as well as a few literary influences. I am also in the early drafting stages of a crime drama romance and a historical crime fantasy but those are still far away.
THE CHAOS INSIDE ME is available now!
Follow Elisabet on her social media: Twitter and Instagram.
Elisabet Salas
Elisabet Salas is a Mexican-American writer currently based out of Southern California, where she lives with her family and dog. When she's not working on various novels and projects she's up all night reading or marathoning a new TV show while consuming her weight in coffee and french fries.
You can find her on Twitter @life_of_lizz tweeting her life away or on Instagram @life_of_lizz_.