Hajjar Baban : Low Flying Planes

Today’s guest, poet Hajjar Baban, discusses her truly remarkable debut collection of poetry Low Flying Planes. Together we explore Kurdish poetics, the role of silence, refusal and isolation in her work, the Kurdish Poets Collective, writing lineages, and much more. Selected for the 2025 National Poetry Series by past guest of the show, poet Jake Skeets, Jake says of Low Flying Planes: “…if tradition is to be made whole, if memory, if truth, it begins with a book like this. I’m eager for the world to enter this one and emerge on the other side transformed, into a place where words are both nourished and at stake. I’m eager for this poet, for a new voice that asks us to change. It is my honor to introduce this marvelous work.”

For the bonus audio archive, Hajjar contributes an extended reading of short poems by Eugène Guillevic and a discussion of his influence on her work. This joins readings from everyone from Jorie Graham to Omar El Akkad, Dionne Brand to Isabella Hammad and more. You can learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio and about the other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter at the show’s Patreon page.

Finally, here is the BTC BookShop specific for today’s episode. And don’t miss Milkweed Editions BookShop as well.