Richard Hamilton : part one

Richard Hamilton was born in 1975 and grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey and Columbus, Georgia. He is the author of Rest of US published by ReCenter Press (2021) in Philadelphia. Hamilton is the recipient of fellowships and support from the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson City, Vermont and the Cave Canem Foundation in Brooklyn, NY. He lives in Washington, D.C. 

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?

Pork. Egg. Fair pay. Poetry is a weapon. It’s a bruised vegetable reconstituted. It does what other writing forms, in some cases, take longer to do. It aerates subjects and complicates a given argument. It makes things strange to loosen or tighten the strangleholds on us, real and imagined. It does so to evoke, to arm, to muddy, make clean, hold to account, or leave for witness. My own writing takes the history of race relations and working class replies to exploitation seriously.