Interview with Kamden Ishmael Hilliard

Feb 4, 2023

Finally, after a long break, Waves Breaking returns with this interview with Kamden Ishmael Hilliard. Kam generously shares their time with me to discuss their debut book of poems, MissSettl, out last year with Nightboat Books. We go in deep to discuss their thoughts around the sentence, modes of speech, writing poems within this current era of late-stage capitalism, and teaching students.

Kamden Ishmael Hilliard was born in La Jolla, CA; their fam settled on O'ahu, Hawai'i. Kamden holds a BA in American Studies from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Kamden, a nonbinary Black settler who goes by Kam, works on issues of surveillance, race, queerness, contemporary art and American politics. They're thankful for support from The National YoungArts Foundation, The Davidson Institute, Sarah Lawrence College, and The UCROSS Foundation. Kam’s writing appears in West Branch, The Black Warrior Review, Tagvverk, Denver Quarterly, The Columbia Review, and other publications.
 
Formerly, they served as an AmeriCorps VISTA, held Maytag, Teaching-Writing, and Pfluflaught Fellowships at the University of Iowa, and were the 2020-2022 Anisfield-Wolf Fellow in Publishing and Writing at the Cleveland State University Poetry Center, a reader at Flypaper Lit, and a board member at VIDA: Women In Literary Arts.

Kamden's website

Kamden's Instagram

Go buy MissSettl!

Mentioned in the interview:

• Joyelle McSweeney

• Jayson P. Smith

• “Poem About My Rights” by June Jordan

• bell hooks

• Hoodie Allen (I’m sorry lol)

• Skee-Lo

• Punahou School Hawaii

• Iowa Writers Workshop and the Cold War

• James Baldwin

• Nene (bird)

  • The nene population is on the rebound from its endangered status

• Beloved by Toni Morrison

  • Huge plug for everyone to listen to the audiobook version of Beloved read by Toni Morrison herself. Find it on Libby!

• Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

• Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (film)

  • My poem with Judge Doom in it is “After Saturn Ate His Own Kid” at the bottom of this page.

• West Side Story (film)

• Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong

Kam’s Anti-recommendations:

• Apocalypse Now (film)

• The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

• The Sandman (TV series)

This show's Editor and Social Media Manager is Mitchel Davidovitz. 

The Sound of Waves Breaking is a clip of my cousin Ian and me (fake band name: Diminutive Denizens) doing a cover of “Dig My Grave” by They Might Be Giants. It’s on this cover album of Apollo 18 if you want to listen to the whole thing. There are a bunch of other covers you can listen to there for free, including a very dumb skit my friend Greg and I did for one of the “Fingertips.” Greg’s the host of the excellent podcast This Might Be a Podcast which I’ve also guested on many times. Check it out!