Eight years after Field Theories—Samiya Bashir’s third book, which won the Oregon Book Award for Poetry—comes I Hope This Helps, out now from Nightboat. Bashir’s work, both individual and collaborative, has been published, printed, and performed across the U.S. and abroad—and appears here in a culmination of her multimedia practice. In our conversation below, Bashir discusses the project's origins (personal and political rupture), its life as a "poetic mixtape," and her many modes—all attuned to the compounded crises of our present.  "This book cracked something open in me," she says. "I’m not trying to close it. I’m trying to live inside…

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