Episode Forty-five

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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:

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!

Episode Forty-one

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In this episode, I spoke with féi hernandez about Hood Criatura, their poetry collection released in 2020. We also spoke about their incredible skills as an illustrator, and féi recommends some fantastic books and music.

féi hernandez (b.1993 Chihuahua, Mexico) is a trans, Inglewood- raised, formerly undocumented immigrant artist, writer, healer. They have been published in POETRY, Pank Magazine, Oxford Review of Books, Frontier Poetry, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, amongst others. They are a Define American Fellow for 2021 and are currently the Board President of Gender Justice Los Angeles. féi is the author of the full-length poetry collection Hood Criatura (Sundress Publications 2020) which was on NPR’s Best Books of 2020. féi collects Pokémon plushies.

féi’s website

féi’s instagram

Purchase Hood Criatura

An example of one of féi’s illustrations:

“The Woman Inside” by féi hernandez. You can see more of their illustrations here.

“The Woman Inside” by féi hernandez. You can see more of their illustrations here.

Poets, books, etc. mentioned in this episode:

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

The Sound of Waves Breaking is “Project - 3_30_21, 6.55 PM.wav” by bradygalp123

Episode Thirty-eight

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In this episode I spoke with Rainie Oet about their recent publication Glorious Veils of Diane. 

Content warning: We talk a lot about blood and some about self-harming.

Rainie Oet is a nonbinary writer and game designer, former Editor-in-Chief of Salt Hill Journal, and the author of Glorious Veils of Diane (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2021), as well as two other books: Porcupine in Freefall and Inside Ball Lightning. They have an MFA in Poetry from Syracuse University, where they were awarded the Shirley Jackson Prize in Fiction. 

Artists, books, films, games etc. mentioned in this episode:

The Sound of Waves Breaking: "Sanchon Drum - Seoul Korea" by RTB45

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

Episode Twenty-six

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Hello, hello! Happy Spring! I'm here with another interview for you fine people. I had the opportunity to interview B'ellana Johannx aka Chloe Rose about their two upcoming chapbooks Satanic Verses: A Guidebook for the New Transfaggot (2019) and The Fatbergs (2019).

B'ellana Johannx's gender is Rilke’s dark god: a webbed scrim made of a thousand roots drinking in silence. Also known as Chloe Rose, she/they are a fat, queer, femme, non-binary womxn-of-color living with disabilities and their cats Franz and Pepper in Tacoma, WA. Rose/Johannx has been published in The Wanderer, Dream Pop, and Aspasiology, with Pushcart and Bettering American Poetry nominations henny, so watch out! Tweet them about conlangs, antifa, witchcraft, and drag names @llanaandsuchas. If you are a faggot, you are her/their kin and they love you. May the peace of the Goddess and God be upon you. #SMIB

B'ellana's website

B'ellana's Twitter 

Writers, books, ideas, musicians mentioned:

"The Sound of Waves Breaking" is titled "Ghost Merkel Beat" by stanrams and made me laugh my ass off.

This episode was edited and media managed by Mitchel Davidovitz

Episode Ten

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This month’s interview is with none other than Jayy Dodd! In this episode we talk about their newest chapbook [sugar in the tank], their work in other genres of art and critique, their views on compensation for artistic labor, and more.

Authors and Works mentioned in this episode:

This episode was edited by Mitchel Davidovitz, whose experimental audio work "Window of Normalization" you can check out at his bandcamp.

 

    The Sound of Waves Breaking is Lucille Clifton reading her work “blessing the boats,” a poem I return to often in this post-election climate.

    Episode Six

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    photo by Scott Shaw

    photo by Scott Shaw

    Jai Arun Ravine talks to me about their newest book, The Romance of Siam, just released from Timeless, Infinite Light. We talk about their use of humor in critiquing orientalism, the tourist industry in Thailand, and their process as an interdisciplinary artist. 

    I have no idea what Jim Thompson's "jungle box" looked like, but maybe it was something like this

    I have no idea what Jim Thompson's "jungle box" looked like, but maybe it was something like this

    The sound of waves breaking is a section of the (incredibly long) "Once in a Lifetime" theme song for Thailand's tourism campaign. 

    Transcripts by Amir Rabiyah: https://www.scribd.com/document/378843274/Interview-with-Jai-Arun-Ravine

    External materials mentioned in this episode: