An afternoon with Khadijah Queen, poet, author, affiliate professor | VTx

Mark Blane: To start, let’s play a minor phrase association video game. You react with as many text and thoughts as you want. Very first term: Film.

Queen: I watched something a short while ago that was so very good, “Philomena.”

Blane: Subsequent is: Foodstuff.

Queen: I made a genuinely bomb salad the other working day.

Blane: What was in it?

Queen: Sesame seeds, raisins, carrots, cucumber, and I usually put seasoning in my salad like oregano and salt and pepper and basil. And I make a handmade balsamic vinaigrette with olive oil and all the seasonings.

Blane: Yum. Up coming phrase: Browsing.

Queen: I do on the net searching. So I picked up my groceries at Concentrate on the other working day.

Blane: Music.

Queen: “Magnolia” by Leon Bridges.

Blane: Adding that to my playlist now. So let us soar in. I’ve observed in your function that you are fond of relocating involving kinds of poetry, primarily experimental types. In “Anodyne,” I see erasure poetry, I see a sestina, a monologue even, relocating between them all seamlessly. Motion, in typical, is vital for so lots of writers and artists. You have moved and lived all above. Previous yr you have been living and teaching in Denver, but you grew up in Los Angeles. You also served in the armed service for a number of many years. Movement is not international to you, and now you’re in Blacksburg.

Queen: It is been an encounter. It is been an adjustment. I’m not modified nevertheless. We keep residence a large amount mainly because, you know, we [my family] all have disabilities. But we get our security equipment on for trip time, and I have been to New York twice. And I enjoy that New York has a large amount of protection techniques and protocols. I have been to France considering that I moved below. I was in France in December. I wrote a lot there, and I’m going back this summer season for a James Baldwin conference. I’m on a panel with Carmen Gimenez [director of Virginia Tech’s Creative Writing MFA Program] and 3 of my good friends, and we’re just gonna speak about James Baldwin in the south of France. But, of course, in Blacksburg the mountains are rather. I love the sky, the sunset, and sunrise. I love Eats, the organic foods retail outlet.

Blane:  How does motherhood impact your instructing practice, creatively, and spiritually?

Queen: My son is 22, but…