Altars & Artists: Holly Chester
Interview 07: perfectionism, coffee table poetry, and home as an extended metaphor
Welcome to Altars & Artists, a monthly interview series divining the poetry of artists' spaces. Inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s book "The Poetics of Space" and Virginia Woolf’s extended essay "A Room of One’s Own", Altars & Artists delves into the creative spaces of contemporary artists to reveal the intimate worlds they operate within.
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Please welcome our January Altars & Artists guest: Holly Chester
Holly Chester is a writer, creative, and entrepreneur based in Nashville, Tennessee and has been sharing her poetry online since 2020. After being accepted into the program, she attended the Chateau Orquevaux Artist Residency in France in 2023 to work on her debut poetry book Welcome To My Mind, which was released in September 2024. Her reason for writing can best be understood through her artist statement:
"I write because I find joy in combining words into beautiful phrases that evoke emotion in others. I write so that others feel less alone and instead, feel more understood. I want my words to resonate deeply with every reader and encourage them, share in their joy, relate to their heartbreak, comfort them in their grief, and even make them laugh from time to time. My goal is to share my heart and mind through my words and in doing so, ignite a light in others that hopefully inspires them to do the same."
Questions & Curiosities
Welcome to Ruminations Holly! Thank you so much for joining us. Could you please begin by telling us a bit about yourself?
HC: Thank you so much for having me. I’m honoured to be included in your wonderful series. I’m originally from Ellijay, Georgia, but I’ve lived in Nashville, Tennessee for almost 14 years. I moved here to attend Belmont University and ended up staying post-graduation. I have an entrepreneurial spirit and love to travel. I speak fluent sarcasm and always love a good dad joke. I also released my debut poetry book, Welcome To My Mind, in September!
Congratulations—what an incredible achievement! It’s a beautiful collection, and I was hoping you might explore some of its themes with me. Throughout Welcome To My Mind, you engage in ‘a battle of the mind’ to explore ‘chaos, self-sabotage, heartbreak, love, and kindness’. Can you tell us more about how these themes fight to coexist on the page?
HC: Thank you again! I can’t believe I have a book out in the world. These themes fight to coexist in my mind every single day, so I allowed myself to be incredibly vulnerable and bring the battles I face onto the page. WTMM speaks to and embraces many aspects of mental health. I divided the book into four sections, with two speaking more about love and kindness, and the other two about chaos, sadness, and self-sabotage. We can’t always neatly separate these themes in our own minds and the poems represent that. For example, you’ll read a poem about love that also touches on heartbreak and so on.
You truly have written a beautiful, vulnerable collection. I wondered if the writing process was healing for you or if it presented new challenges you hadn’t anticipated needing to overcome.
HC: When writing about the mind, I should have expected to be challenged by my own—but I was not fully prepared for the mental battle. The writing process was an ordeal and it brought to light many of my self-sabotaging habits, specifically perfectionism. I knew it was something I struggled with, but didn’t realise how engrained in my mind it was.
When I completed the book, I printed out all the pages and physically put the poems in the order I wanted them to appear. I had over 200 pages spread across my living room floor and it bothered me because I couldn’t realize the order they needed to be in. I literally had to say out loud: “Nobody cares but you” multiple times to finish the process. Because at the end of the day, the reader doesn’t care or notice the order of the poems. The reader only cares about how the words relate to them and if the poems make them feel seen or understood. Connecting with others is what creativity is all about.
You’ve taken a multimedia approach to your book, carefully interweaving poetry, prose, and photography. It’s visually stunning and begs to be displayed. What was your process for creating a book that would appeal to readers both lyrically and aesthetically?
HC: Thank you! I’m very proud of how it all came together. Since the beginning, I envisioned the book to be the type of aesthetically pleasing, black-and-white book that sits on a coffee table. One that you can pick up at any moment to look at the pictures and words throughout its pages. I knew it would be a process to bring this book to life, but I knew if I didn’t add pictures I’d always regret it. But I didn’t know how to do it, which is another reason it took me over three years to complete.
Nashville has a wonderful creative community and my friend Fadwa Ward understood my vision and idea. I created a vision board with ideas for each section of the book and we were able to shoot some of the shots showcasing the house interior at the local Riverwood Mansion. Because I loved all the photos, it was another process of selecting the photos for the book. I then had Linsey Dodaro format the book’s interior.
I wanted the reader to be taken on a visual journey as well, so they can actually see the elements come to life when they’re reading and feel like they are walking through a home. Overall, it was a learning process, but I’m so glad I persevered because if I do say so myself, it looks beautiful on my coffee table :)
“There’s a sconce attached to the wall
I leave it on as a reminder
There is always light to be found in the world
Even in the darkest of hallways”
— Holly Chester
I love the way your mind is explored through the extended metaphor of a home. It makes something quite aqueous and abstract feel more structured, labyrinthine, and tangible. What inspired this creative approach?
HC: The book is based on the titular poem I penned four or five years ago. I don’t really remember the inspiration behind it, but I remember thinking shortly after writing it that this poem could actually be the foundation and outline for a book. I’d break the book into four sections called The Halls, The Walls, The Gate, and The Key, and each section would contain poems related to the subject—all poems in the first section would relate to chaos and madness, all poems in second the section would relate to love and kindness and so on.
“Welcome to my mind
I think you’ll find yours is a lot like mine
Chaos and madness roam the halls
While love and kindness cover the walls
You may be hesitant to open the gate
Afraid that you’ll find something you hate
But learning the mind is a good place to start
For it is the key to opening your heart”
— Holly Chester
I’d always wanted to write a book, and now that I had an outline in place, I began writing poems to fit the idea. As I kept writing, I experimented with the idea of connecting elements of a home with the emotions we experience. My mind just went with it, and it inspired me to write different types of poems that I never would’ve written if I didn’t have a specific theme in mind. Thank you for noticing the connection.
Returning to the material realm now, walk us through your creative space.
HC: I write in multiple places throughout my apartment. I have an office with a standing desk and a smaller desk holding one of my typewriters from the 1930s beside it. I sometimes use it to type out poems for Instagram posts.
I have a really open living room with lots of natural light, so I love writing by the windows at my dining room table, especially early in the afternoon when the sun comes through. And of course, the couch often becomes a writing space, particularly at night.
As someone who often works from home, do you have a separate dedicated space for your creative work or rituals to help you mentally shift between work and play?
HC: I don’t have a separate dedicated space, but to me, it’s more about the mental shift than the physical one. My job involves marketing and strategy and has taught me a lot about e-commerce, which the entrepreneur in me loves. But because it’s more strategic than creative, I’ve found it’s often difficult to switch between the two. What has helped is blocking off time to specifically focus on writing so I’m forced to turn off all thoughts relating to my work and truly hone in on being creative.
Thank you for sharing your altars with us today, Holly. Before we move on to the next segment for our paid subscribers, can you give us a glimpse into any of the projects you’re working on?
HC: This may be a corny answer, but it’s also a Holly answer. The project I’m working on at the moment is myself. I poured a lot of my heart and soul and brain power into bringing Welcome To My Mind to fruition. Because I gave it my all, I’ve honestly felt creatively depleted. I think creatives are expected to create all the time because it’s an essential part of who we are, but I’ve learned it’s very difficult for me to create if I’m not taking care of my mind and body. For how can I write words that pour into other people if I don’t pour into myself first?
Even though I don’t write every day, I refuse to listen to the voice of imposter syndrome that tells me I’m not a writer. I still consider myself a writer because even when I’m not writing I am living, and that is something worth writing about.
I do have a few other book ideas in mind, but I haven’t finalised one yet. I think I’ll need to do a little more living before the next book idea solidifies itself.
Keep up to date with Holly and her latest work:
Website | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok
Purchase Welcome To My Mind:
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