Interview #3: Campbell Collins "Ohio Sinkhole" and "Goldie's Lorikeets"

What inspired you to create your piece?

For “Ohio Sinkhole,” I drew a lot of inspiration from my childhood. While I didn’t grow up in Ohio, I spent a lot of time visiting family there, and I grew up hearing stories from my parents about their childhoods and about the towns they were raised in – about where they worked and went to school, what they did with their free time, things like that.s in our neighborhood.

What is your favorite part of your piece?

I think the “childhood cassette tapes” line is my favorite, because it reminds me of my Dad’s love of music.

What did creating your piece mean to you?

I see this poem as a collage, of sorts, of my own childhood memories and some of my parents’. Every time I visited my Dad's family in Ohio, for example, I would hike in Mill Creek, play pool in my grandparents’ basement, and run around in their backyard. While this poem is essentially about a sinkhole swallowing everything up, I wanted it to be fun and to be a collection of memories, places, and history.