Overview

Winner of the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry Sonically vibrant, polyphonic, typographic experimentation gleefully strategizes resistance and life under white supremacist capitalism in Kamden Hilliard's debut collection of poems, MissSettl. In MissSettl, is a funny, joyful, and spiteful debut collection of seriously playful poems; they carry on with impish provocation, engagement, and mourning for what has been done to our living practices. These poems lampoon rigged games of common sense, syntax, and citizenship to expose the mechanics of what Americans have become and what they might be freed into after the end of capitalism and gender, and race, and money, and property. MissSettl confronts what's in the way of love; it disrupts what limits our potential.

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9781643621401

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Reviews

Kamden Hilliard's Distress Tolerance is an act of tangled agency-of splicing, building, and moving through languages that work both to tolerate as well as to disrupt this fucked-up world. These poems navigate chaos and traumatic experience, fear and desire, race and language, with their own relentless, forceful rhythm. - Gale Thompson, The Rumpus Hilliard forces the body, in particular the Black body, to be seen, to be visible, both publicly and politically ... Hilliard subverts the white, heteronormative, patriarchal desperation for static identity. They mock definitions and parameters. The poems loop through the connections among erasure and trauma and humanity. Hilliard wrests these concepts out of the ether and into the material, into the candid. - John Allen Taylor, Redivider Distress Tolerance concerns itself with identity, often linked to place, though more often connected to one's place in the world ... Hilliard is preparing for their future-and preparing us to face ours-with their saints of the past and saints of the present leading the way. - Kimberly Ann Southwick, Ploughshares Exposing one's self to Kamden Hilliard's work in Perceived Distance from Impact is akin to an invasive species of narratives unburdened by linearity, occupying the brain stem... When language and technology function under the guise of assumed whiteness, Kamden clowns these notions. Perceived Distance From Impact irreparably entangles dualities. While reading, one must tear down the roof of their mouth so the tongue and the brain have full access to each other. - Xandria Phillips, Winter Tangerine Kam sees a world the rest of us cannot, and they form it, whole and sparking, out of an empty page...Hilliard isn't afraid of the touchy landscapes of gender and digital language. In fact, their fluency with new language, so smooth that I sometimes can't tell if they've made up an entirely new word, is exhilarating...In short, it's extremely dope. - Jess Rice-Evans, Heavy Feather Review Hilliard crafts an avant-garde 'travel poetics' that not only traverses locales across the Pacific, Asia, and the United States, but also transgresses the normative and secured borders of nationalism, gender, aesthetics, and language itself. Throughout, we encounter 'portraits' of radical, queer, black, and American selves in all their desire and pain, fear and freedom. In the end, we continuously arrive henceforce at the fluttering dream of 'flite Fruitility Pozsibility. -Craig Santos Perez

MissSettl, Kamden Ishmael Hilliard's delightfully jarring debut collection, explodes assumptions about language, race, and American (post)colonialism in an age of information overload... A 21st century Dadaist or Metamodernist text, this collection demands that readers rethink the present state (and future!) of American poetics. -Diego Baez, Harriet The power of these poems-and this interview-comes from Hilliard's demonstration that there does exist the potential for further capaciousness and plasticity-of language, play, singing, thought, and (importantly) imagination-which can be enacted uncompromisingly against the internal and external sanctions that would seek to limit such efforts. -Peter Mishler, Full Stop MissSettl uses big words and made-up words because they're all the same. MissSettl explores first loves, sexual identity, identity, the absurdity of definition, and is constantly seeking to exist without the need for definition, without the need for justification. -Jacob Collins-Wilson, Heavy Feather Review Kamden Hilliard is one of the most unique poets. Whether writing about blackness, settler colonialism, or racial capitalism, they 'tricc' syntax and form into something both 'skinthicc' and 'metaphysiqule.' MissSettl invites us to party inside the 'weerd' language of multiple selves dancing and transforming 'queerdum.' -Craig Santos Perez Kamden Hilliard's language addresses the present, wherein 'thot' replaces thought-and the military-industrial complex and its several violences has proven merely a 'warflik' we might choose to watch (or not). I'm continually drawn in by Hilliard's 'Nickelodeons,' not just the one Nickelodeon (which is itself confined to a particular 90s moment we will relive) but the televisual multiplicity of myriad concurrent Nickelodeons that MissSettl evokes. Where else do we get to see, hear, or succumb to the dangerous play Hilliard is embroiled in here? -An Duplan In MissSettl, Hilliard unsettles QWERTY and queers linguistic bedrock to unlock readers from our own stiff poetic leanings and beliefs about the 'Clotted sign, cloying signifier' that celebrity and academicians alike accommodate for small change. These poems make hypersense, are tricksters baffling the OED with alphanumeric chimeras and lines so long they yawn at their pantomime because what they mimic bores with bullshit violence: 'The university didn't mean to offend that hair ,/ but was just so demographically curious about where you come from.' MissSettl embraces everything Black and queer and I'm here for it, am shown how fuccd I am through these critiques of capitalism, ableism, and [insert hetero-entangled-ism]. No book has been this bitingly generous to me in years. -Philip B. Williams In MissSettl (Nightboat, Apr.), nonbinary poet Kamden Ishmael Hilliard pushes against everything that inhibits genuine love and genuine self.' -Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

"""This is life and/or death poetry. This is love poetry to a most infinite degree of love pushing it/us beyond its/our known capacity.""—Kirby Chen Mages, The Poetry Project ""MissSettl, Kamden Ishmael Hilliard’s delightfully jarring debut collection, explodes assumptions about language, race, and American (post)colonialism in an age of information overload... A 21st century Dadaist or Metamodernist text, this collection demands that readers rethink the present state (and future!) of American poetics.""—Diego Báez, Harriet ""The power of these poems—and this interview—comes from Hilliard’s demonstration that there does exist the potential for further capaciousness and plasticity—of language, play, singing, thought, and (importantly) imagination—which can be enacted uncompromisingly against the internal and external sanctions that would seek to limit such efforts.""—Peter Mishler, Full Stop ""In reading MissSettl, meaning is coming to us already thrown out. Disposed of. As quickly as we’re asked to participate in this sense-making game, we’re cast into the ensuing gunfire of the speaker’s imagination."" —Anaïs Duplan, Ghost Proposal ""MissSettl uses big words and made-up words because they’re all the same. MissSettl explores first loves, sexual identity, identity, the absurdity of definition, and is constantly seeking to exist without the need for definition, without the need for justification.""—Jacob Collins-Wilson, Heavy Feather Review “Kamden Hilliard is one of the most unique poets. Whether writing about blackness, settler colonialism, or racial capitalism, they ‘tricc’ syntax and form into something both ‘skinthicc’ and ‘metaphysiqule.’ MissSettl invites us to party inside the ‘weerd’ language of multiple selves dancing and transforming ‘queerdum.’”—Craig Santos Perez “Kamden Hilliard’s language addresses the present, wherein ‘thot’ replaces thought—and the military-industrial complex and its several violences has proven merely a ‘warflik’ we might choose to watch (or not). I’m continually drawn in by Hilliard’s ‘Nickelodeons,’ not just the one Nickelodeon (which is itself confined to a particular 90s moment we will relive) but the televisual multiplicity of myriad concurrent Nickelodeons that MissSettl evokes. Where else do we get to see, hear, or succumb to the dangerous play Hilliard is embroiled in here?”—Anaïs Duplan “In MissSettl, Hilliard unsettles QWERTY and queers linguistic bedrock to unlock readers from our own stiff poetic leanings and beliefs about the ‘Clotted sign, cloying signifier’ that celebrity and academicians alike accommodate for small change. These poems make hypersense, are tricksters baffling the OED with alphanumeric chimeras and lines so long they yawn at their pantomime because what they mimic bores with bullshit violence: ‘The university didn’t mean to offend that hair ,/ but was just so demographically curious about where you come from.’ MissSettl embraces everything Black and queer and I’m here for it, am shown how fuccd I am through these critiques of capitalism, ableism, and [insert hetero-entangled-ism]. No book has been this bitingly generous to me in years.”—Philip B. Williams “In MissSettl (Nightboat, Apr.), nonbinary poet Kamden Ishmael Hilliard pushes against everything that inhibits genuine love and genuine self.’”—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal"

Kamden Hilliard is one of the most unique poets. Whether writing about blackness, settler colonialism, or racial capitalism, they 'tricc' syntax and form into something both 'skinthicc' and 'metaphysiqule.' MissSettl invites us to party inside the 'weerd' language of multiple selves dancing and transforming 'queerdum.' -Craig Santos Perez Kamden Hilliard's language addresses the present, wherein 'thot' replaces thought-and the military-industrial complex and its several violences has proven merely a 'warflik' we might choose to watch (or not). I'm continually drawn in by Hilliard's 'Nickelodeons,' not just the one Nickelodeon (which is itself confined to a particular 90s moment we will relive) but the televisual multiplicity of myriad concurrent Nickelodeons that MissSettl evokes. Where else do we get to see, hear, or succumb to the dangerous play Hilliard is embroiled in here? -An Duplan In MissSettl, Hilliard unsettles QWERTY and queers linguistic bedrock to unlock readers from our own stiff poetic leanings and beliefs about the 'Clotted sign, cloying signifier' that celebrity and academicians alike accommodate for small change. These poems make hypersense, are tricksters baffling the OED with alphanumeric chimeras and lines so long they yawn at their pantomime because what they mimic bores with bullshit violence: 'The university didn't mean to offend that hair ,/ but was just so demographically curious about where you come from.' MissSettl embraces everything Black and queer and I'm here for it, am shown how fuccd I am through these critiques of capitalism, ableism, and [insert hetero-entangled-ism]. No book has been this bitingly generous to me in years. -Philip B. Williams In MissSettl (Nightboat, Apr.), nonbinary poet Kamden Ishmael Hilliard pushes against everything that inhibits genuine love and genuine self.' -Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Author Information

Kamden Hilliard is a nonbinary poet, educator, and scholar who lives in Cleveland, Ohio. They hold a BA in American Studies from the University of Hawai'i and an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Kam is author of three chapbooks of poetry: distress tolerance (Magic Helicopter Press, 2016), perceived distance from impact (Black Lawrence Press, 2017), and henceforce: a travel poetic (Omnidawn Books, 2019). Kamden serves as a board member at VIDA: Women In Literary Arts, a reader at Flypaper Lit, and the 2020-2022 Anisfield-Wolf Fellowship in Publishing and Writing at The Cleveland State University Poetry Center.

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