Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Winner of the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
Former 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.
"CAConrad 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
"It is safe to say that Amanda Paradise will more than likely become a definitive text in terms of how poetry effectively articulated the COVID pandemic as a symptom of a bigger issue: governmental violence that affects not only humans, but animals and the earth itself. And yet it is also noteworthy for the way in which Conrad utilizes their poetic voice as a force for empowerment and strength, as a way to resist and transcend political oppression. This is what truly makes their work special and meaningful."
—Andrea Syzdek, Against the Grain
"This book cements CAConrad as a deeply original voice committed to plumbing humanity's plights in unusual ways."
—Starred review in Publishers Weekly
"In Amanda Paradise, past and future lives collide; entire epochs pass in one line-break; extinct bodies and feelings are resurrected so that CAConrad can reclaim a little more time(lessness)."
—Jay Ying, Poetry Foundation
"But if rooted firmly in the frequency of the immediate world, the poems are equally oriented to the horizon."
—Poets & Writers
"In addition to being the latest addition to CAConrad’s eminently interesting but confounding body of work, it might just be the most interesting-yet-confounding to date."
—Kevin O'Rourke, Michigan Quarterly Review
"Conrad is a great example of a poet whose work invests in the ritual performance of writing — more so, one might say, than investing in the poem as a product itself, if one wants to divide the product from the process."
—Eric Shoemaker, Jacket2
"Despite the strains of grief and loss thread through these poems, the shapes and gestures of Amanda Paradise display a high level of formal inventiveness, play and even joyfulness. Honestly, there is such a sense of joyous celebration and of acknowledging the small moments and gestures...that CAConrad appears to refuse to let go, despite whatever else might occur. And in the end, perhaps this might be the very key to our ongoing emotional health, if not even our continued survival."
—Rob Mclennan, Periodicities: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics
"The beautiful poems in Amanda Paradise are gifts and time capsules, sharp in their capturing of the present and majestic in their ability to offer shards of what else could be possible."
—Britt McGillivray, Minola Review
"Living all time all the time / Not just preparing but living with past, present, future selves / The moments that would bring us to our knees"
—Xan Schwartz, Cleveland Review of Books
CAConrad has been working with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975. They are the author of AMANDA PARADISE, forthcoming from Wave Books in 2021. Their book While Standing in Line for Death won a Lambda Literary Award. They also received a Creative Capital grant, a Pew Fellowship, and a Believer Magazine Book Award. They teach at Columbia University in New York City and Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam. Please view their books, essays, recordings, and upcoming events at bit.ly/88CAConrad.
TABLE 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