Reading: Kamden Ishmael Hilliard & Carlos Lara

Kamden Ishmael Hilliard & Carlos Lara turn with new octane and direction our sense of what might be assembled or dismantled of what and how.

Dreams and detritus, the drams of capital and what can be salvaged in the aftermaths of capital, the poems of Kamden Ishmael Hilliard and Carlos Lara turn with new octane and direction our sense of what might be assembled or dismantled of what and how. Kamden Ishmael Hilliard is the author of the chapbooks distress tolerance and henceforth: a travel poetic; Carlos Lara’s most recent book is Like Bismuth When I Enter, winner of the 2018 Nightboat Poetry Prize. Come for the acrobatic music and syntax, stay for all that flickers in the rough.

Kamden Ishmael Hilliard is a poet, editor, and teacher. They are the author of three chapbooks, most recently, henceforce: a travel poetic (Omnidawn Books, 2019); their debut full-length collection of poetry is forthcoming from Nightboat Books. Kam earned a BA in American Studies from The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and an MFA in Poetry from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop. You can find Kam’s writing in print and online. Formerly, they are upset. Currently, they are the 2020-2022 Anisfield-Wolf Fellow in Publishing and Writing. Forever? They are trying very hard.

Carlos Lara is a poet and translator from Chula Vista, California. His spectacular translation of Blanca Varela’s book Canto villano (Rough Song) was published by The Song Cave in 2020. He is also the author of the tour-de-force Like Bismuth When I Enter (Nightboat, 2020) and the mind-blowing The Green Record (Apostrophe, 2018) and the co-author, with Will Alexander, of The Audiographic As Data (Oyster Moon, 2016), a text that erupted into this plane from prior time. He has lived in Brooklyn, Washington state, and Saudi Arabia, and currently resides with his wife and son in the greatest city on the planet, Los Angeles.