Perceived Distance from Impact by Kamden Hilliard (Black Lawrence Press, paperback)

Publication Date: February 7, 2017

Publisher Marketing: Poetry. PERCEIVED DISTANCE FROM IMPACT forgot to charge its phone, got lost, and is almost happy about it. These poems are catalogues, unorganized purses, they are late to the party and forgot to RSVP. They are also unquiet, unapologetic, and unafraid to explore passionately, expose their hearts nakedly, and fight back fervently. Hilliard's speakers cling to the coast, film, computer science, queerness, and race—all in an attempt to stitch together a self in a world uninterested in the process.

Kamden Hilliard is a ferocious and savvy, edgy and on-edge, whip-smart and hold-no-prisoners new voice in contemporary poetry. Through erasure, remixing, imagining, and laughing, the poems in this vivid new collection ask how close a person can go to pain. Once there, can you return?

"The poems in Kamden Hilliard's PERCEIVED DISTANCE FROM IMPACT are doing the most! Fragmented & fractured & fabulous & technocratic—they grip you by your collar scruff & drag you in. This poet's scope is transnational & transhistoric & transcendent. The poems are like a globe turning wetly in the mouth. The deft incorporation & pastiche of various registers makes the reading experience of this book a panoply of 'godDAMN' & 'More Please.' Read this now!"—sam sax