Caledonia native C.T. Salazar’s first book of poetry brought him statewide recognition. His newest collection is poised to make a splash on the national poetry scene.
“Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking” will be released Friday by Acre Books, the book publishing arm of the highly regarded literary magazine “The Cincinnati Review.”
While Salazar has previously written three chapbooks of poetry, “Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking” is his first full-length collection. It received a starred review in “Library Journal.”
Salazar’s first publication, “This Might Have Meant Fire,” earned the 2020 poetry award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.
Salazar’s writing is grounded in his Mississippi roots, and as he wrestles with his identity on the page, he often invokes Biblical references.
“Writing poems about Mississippi and its people is slippery in that Mississippians are both very real but also very mythic,” he said in an interview with The Dispatch. “We’ve already brought the King James everywhere. Bringing it to a poem from where it sits in my consciousness was a very natural part of writing the poems that would make this collection.”
Salazar currently resides in Cleveland, Miss., and serves as a reference and instructional services librarian and assistant professor at Delta State University. He previously worked as a senior librarian at Columbus Air Force Base. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a master of fine arts from Mississippi University for Women and completed a master of library and information science from the University of Southern Mississippi last year.
Salazar appeared at Friendly City Books last month in his first event for his new book. He will return to Columbus in the spring as part of the Southern Literary Festival, which will take place at MUW on April 21-23.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What is your writing process like?
I hardly ever write a complete draft or poem in one sitting. If I’m lucky I’ll write a line a week, which is usually not even a complete sentence. I think a lot of self-discoveries inform a single poem, as when I’m writing I am usually trying to process how I feel about a conversation I’ve had or something I’ve witnessed.
How should readers interpret the spaces that appear between words and phrases in some of your poems?
Language is about so much more than words, and with poetry I think it’s especially important to remember this. Sometimes the spaces mean an absence — something is missing from the record — or a way to talk about something is missing from language, so it has to be left blank. Sometimes the spaces mean breath has an equal say in the matter. Mary Oliver describes breath as our first language, and the main engine behind all language.
What led you to pursue a career in library science?
The more I’ve worked in libraries, the more I’ve recognized them to be one of the last spaces of true democratic liberty. That we all have access to the resources we need is a sign of a healthy democracy with fulfilled citizens. When these conditions are challenged, we should be paying attention to the challenger and asking why they desire a step away from collective liberty.
You’ve unearthed the work of a number of lesser-known Mississippi poets. How have these writers influenced you?
This is where archiving and poetry met. Mostly I wanted to see how others used their poetry to reckon with our state, and I ended up building a kind of poetic genealogy for myself.
I’ve been writing longer essays engaging with the poetry and lives of these poets, and one that’s already been published is on the poet Besmilr Brigham (pronounced Bess Miller). Brigham was a Mississippi poet estranged from her Choctaw heritage. Her poetry is immensely strange and embodies the natural world in ways I’ve never considered possible before reading her.
What do you want readers to take away from your writing about Mississippi?
Reading is both a private and communal act. So is writing. I hope readers, especially Southerners, love the book. I hope they recognize themselves in it. Inside the poems I have been very vulnerable about who I am, and I hope readers take that as an invitation to be vulnerable themselves and start conversations about who they are and what they need. The work of a poet is to help a community see themselves.
Emily Liner is the owner of Friendly City Books, an independent bookstore and press in Columbus.
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