Description
Book SynopsisFormer United States Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith wrote in the New York Times, “CAConrad's poems invite the reader to become an agent in a joint act of recovery, to step outside of passivity and propriety and to become susceptible to the illogical and the mysterious.” The poems in AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect Extinct Vibration reach out from a (Soma)tic poetry ritual where CA flooded their body with the field recordings of recently extinct animals. Foundational here are the memories of loved ones who died of AIDS, the daily struggle of existing through the Corona Virus pandemic, and the effort to arrive at a new way of falling in love with the world as it is, not as it was.
Trade ReviewCAConrad always argues (from the inside of their poems) for a poetry of radical inclusivity while keeping a very queer shoulder to the wheel. Their kind of queerness strikes me as nonpolarizing, not intentionally but because of the fullness of their exposition, a kind of gigantism that seems to me to be most deeply informed by love, and a tenderness for the ravages and tumult of existence.
—Eileen Myles
At a time when I don’t always know how to make sense of what’s going on, CAConrad serves as a cleareyed seer.
—Jillian Steinhauer, New York Times
Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTS
GOLDEN IN THE MORNING CRANE OUR NECKS
ON ALL FOURS I AM A SEAT FOR THE WIND
ACCLIMATING TO DISCOMFORT OF THE SYSTEM BREAKING BENEATH US
900 CHOCOLATE HEARTS A MINUTE AT THE CANDY FACTORY
AUGURIES CAST ASIDE
ONLY IN STACKING BOOKS CAN THE TREE FEEL ITS WEIGHT AGAIN
DEATH WILL SET YOUR DAY RIGHT
BATHE THE DOOR WITH BLOOD OF THE CENTAUR
FOR THE FERAL SPLENDOR THAT REMAINS
ALTERED AFTER TOO MANY YEARS UNDER THE MASK
EMBEDDED SIGNAL TO SHAKE THE DAY
NO ONE HOLDING IT SHUT
YOU CANNOT RETURN A STRETCHED MIND
GLITTER IN MY WOUNDS
WE VANISH INTO ONE ANOTHER AS NEEDED
IMPALED BY SHARP POINTS OF WONDERMENT
DIVING INTO THE PREMONITION
THE ASKING PRICE
ENCIRCLING THIS DAY WITH CENTIPEDE COORDINATION
CAMISADO
ON THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF
AMERICA’S ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT WHILE THE WARS RAGE ON
MEMORIES OF WHY I STOPPED BEING A MAN
45 MINUTES TO RESCUE THE PHOTO ALBUM BEFORE THE GARBAGE TRUCK ARRIVES
MURDER IS AGAINST A RULE SOMEWHERE THAT IS NOT AMERICA
!! !
VISIT A LIVING BEING TO EAT WHAT FALLS FROM THEIR BODY
72 CORONA TRANSMUTATIONS
The (Soma)tic Poetry Ritual:
Resurrect Extinct Vibration
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
