By Lazarus Morrison

One of the first things you might notice about C.D. Collins is the cast and sling on her right arm, tagged in marker with the phrase ‚ÄúPlease do not bump me.‚Äù The request, like the woman who wrote it, is polite but firm. 

The broken arm is a recent accident, but ‚ÄúSeptember has always been a bad karma month for me,‚Äù she said, motioning to older scars on her back and shoulder.  ‚ÄúIt‚Äôs a karmic curse.‚Äù 

A conversation with CD Collins leaves no doubt the woman is tough. She ran away from home in Kentucky, lived on Beacon Hill, and has taken residence in Somerville for the last decade.

‚ÄúThe South is what I write about, it‚Äôs what I love. But I don‚Äôt live there. I had to get 1000 miles away,‚Äù she said of her birthplace. ‚ÄúBeacon Hill was punishing, the rent was too high, there was one parking space for four cars.  There was one tree for 25 apartments ‚Äîand then they cut it down.‚Äù

“Somerville,” she said with a smile, “is God’s country.”

A slight southern accent betrays her Kentucky roots, and frames a sharp wit, an easygoing charm, and a verbal clarity that carries a deeper sense of purpose. Collins is a woman on a mission.

“One of my aims is to facilitate understanding between the north and the south,” she said. “There are still too many stereotypes. Don’t stereotype. Look more deeply. That’s my job.”

Her first album, Kentucky Stories, focused on bridging that gap. As one of originators of the early ‚Äò90s resurgence of spoken-word with live music, Collins  tells the stories of a southern experience.

 
‚ÄúIn a small town in the south, the same intimacy that creates a sense of trust also breeds a deep mistrust, because you feel like nothing is confidential. That causes a warp in character that is different from just any small town because of the requirements of the culture of the south,‚Äù she said, describing the Southern gothic overtones in her writing.  ‚ÄúFor example, being a lesbian can be lethal.‚Äù

Collins knows the struggles over sexual identity in the south from firsthand experience, a fight which she volunteered to be on the front lines for. Although her orientation might technically be
described as bisexual, she identifies herself as “lesbian, but with a boyfriend.”

“Because I had to fight for it, it became my identity, and I don’t want to give it up. I don’t want to hide behind the title ‘bi’, I don’t want that safety,” she said.

Never one to back down, she has recently become more open to overt activism in her writing. This album, Carousel Lounge, is the artistic culmination of another fight close to her heart, the destruction of the mountains in Kentucky and West Virginia.

“This album is about the fragile and endangered among us—our children, our wildlife, our planet,” she said. She has produced a companion documentary video detailing the catastrophic steps of mountaintop removal to retrieve Appalachian coal. “I think that I’m-only-one-person type despair is lazy,” she said. “Cindy Sheehan proved what one person can achieve,” she said.

As a former high school teacher who holds a Master’s degree in English Literature, Collins brings a hard work ethic to her writing. “I like to read brilliant craftspeople, I study them, try to learn from them,” she said. “A word can be worth 1000 pictures, if it is the right word.”

Her album was recorded with support from Women Waging Peace. She is currently fundraising to complete production. She plans a CD release party at her Electric Avenue home with music, entertainment, down-home Kentucky victuals and mint juleps.

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