Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle and Maryam Ivette Parhizkar: March 15, 2019

After an introduction by Steve Dickison, Maryam Ivette Parhizkar speaks on her interest in surrealism before reading "Dreams of the Marvelous," an unpublished poem, while improvising an accompaniment on kalimba. She then reads "Praise for What We Know Not," published in The Brooklyn Rail as "For I Know Not What I Do," followed by "Breakwater," as published at OmniVerse. She talks on her interest in time and music as they influence her work-in-progess, tentatively titled "Studies in the Shape of Time," before reading "Nocturne, in the shape of time (Tehrangeles, after Rilke)," an unpublished excerpt. She reads "More Tender Crevices" and "devotional," two unpublished poems, and "Lockout," published at Gramma, "Invention: Homeland," published at Gesture, "To Be There Is to Be Where You Are," at OmniVerse, "Negative Capability," an unpublished poem, and finishing with "The laws of illumination," an unpublished poem.

Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle speaks on the family events that influenced the creative concerns surrounding her forthcoming debut book of poetry, as well as giving advance warning regarding the book's subject matter, before reading from the manuscript of SIR.

Parhizkar and Hinkle take questions from the audience. Hinkle remarks on her family's ambivalent response to her writing the book, SIR. Daphne Brooks, professor of African American studies at Yale University, asks both poets to remark on their choice to adopt poetic form for their inquiries, to which Hinkle states that poetry "undefines the defined" and remarks on the visual aspects of poetry; Parhizkar agrees with Hinkle's statement, adding additional comments on poetry's ability to foreground abstraction and sound, and on her early love of hearing her parents speak?in English, Spanish, and Farsi. Hinkle and Parhizkar discuss the work of Lucille Clifton as a launching point to comment on the possibilities of poetry to work as a mode of ethnography and excavation. Both poets then offer advice to younger writers: Parhizkar suggests "following the intuition of the ear"; Hinkle suggests that you "not stop yourself before you start" and, in the words of her great uncle Tony, to "look where it ain't." The conversation ends with Parhizkar and Hinkle remarking on the intersection between poetry, anthropology, and self-discovery, each sharing a moment in which they recognized the impact of their creative work on others as well as themselves.