NEW LAURELS:

Hajjar Baban

The New Laurels interview series dives into the poetic minds of our recent Open Competition winners. From thoughts on their writerly influences and habits to the intimate, often complicated process of writing their manuscripts, New Laurels invites readers to get to know the hearts and minds of these poets with an inside look at their upcoming publications.

How did you first get involved in poetry? Was this your first writing genre or something you came to over time? 

I kept a dream journal in high school, very regularly. I remember writing something every day. Wanting to do more with words, I ended up actively searching for poetry opportunities and began writing in an after school writing program, Citywide Poets, through the literary organization InsideOut in Detroit.

What are some of your writerly habits (e.g., a daily practice, a preferred beverage at your side, music, writing analog)? 

I can only write pen to paper. I’ve tried otherwise, but I think I begin to understand myself as I physically work it on the page. I prefer nighttime and alone, but it comes whenever. I can do music but only on a speaker or headphones, and it’s usually not something curated but something I’d already been playing when it hits me.

Manuscripts often come together slowly, but sometimes all at once. How did this collection begin for you? Did it take you in unexpected directions? Can you describe how you ordered the poems?

I began writing LOW FLYING PLANES in grad school, being in isolation and connection with the mountains. I had read a quote in a book by a Kurdish writer (Son of Mountains, Yassin Aref) and it stuck with me, beginning as a grounding motif of rocks. I think it was all unexpected, that was how the first titular poem began. I’d first ordered the poems chronologically and with epigraphs separating three sections and later had a friend reorder with the intention of being “eye-catching.”

What sort of craft elements and themes can readers expect from your work? Why do you find yourself drawn to these things? 

Lots of forms. There’s ghazal and self-portrait and abecedarian and erasures. Themes include navigating (interrogating) a mixed Afghan-Kurdish identity, memory, belief, understanding/knowing. I’m drawn because these are things I wanted to know myself better through.

Do you have a favorite poem in this collection? Why is it your favorite? 

My favorite is a poem in The Arabic form, created by Marwa Helal. It’s titled “Mist Miserable to Stone.” I was able to write through something I’ve been attempting for a while and felt proud of the way I was able to be in conversation with another Kurdish poet, Sherko Bekas, and his words.

Was there a particular poem that you struggled with in these pages? What was complicated about it, and what did working through the challenge look like for you? 

There are some poems that I’d written before this specific project started to come alive, and I’ve debated how to edit between the two voices. I had to work through just accepting that difference is important to the progression.

Looking to your future writing, are there forms, subjects, or themes you want to engage in that you haven’t yet? 

I’m working on poems that use a plural/varied “you” address, through topics of pain, religion, familial enmeshment that take a synesthetic approach.

Who were the poets, artists, or other individuals who most influenced you? Do you find yourself most influenced by a particular form of art? 

When you aren’t writing, how do you fill your days? 

Trying to live.

What advice do you have for aspiring poets just starting out? What were you told, or wish you were told, in those early stages? 

Give yourself permission. Don’t question yourself before you’ve begun. Read as much as you can.

Hajjar Baban is a Pakistan-born Afghan Kurdish poet. Recipient of a Pushcart Prize in poetry, she has poems appearing in and forthcoming from The Schooner, Sundog Lit, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, where she won the 2025 Poetry Contest, selected by Hieu Minh Nguyen. Baban is a co-founder of the Kurdish Poets Collective. LOW FLYING PLANES is her first full length book of poems.