FREE WORKSHOP for MACK Books

JANUARY 10, 2022

1pm New York time

6pm London time

PLEASE SEE THIS LINK TO REGISTER

New (Soma)tic poetry rituals and resulting poems

PHOTO BY Valencia Ganoe

Poetry CALENDAR benefit for Blue Stoop

It is an honor to be published in this poetry calendar alongside so many brilliant poets who I admire! This is a benefit for Blue Stoop. Please see THIS LINK for details!

Many thanks to everyone at Blue Stoop

POETS IN THE MUSEUM

It has been a dream of mine for years to be an exhibit in a museum as a poet. To take up the space reserved generally for the visual arts.

Tomorrow begins my first experience building (Soma)tic poetry rituals and writing in the museum. For one week I will be throwing my body into the poems.

The artist Jason Dodge named his new show at MACRO after a line from my poem "CAMISADO," in my new book AMANDA PARADISE (Wave Books).

When I enter the museum in Rome tomorrow, I will not step out again for a week. What is most exciting is that I have no idea yet what the rituals will look like.

Many thanks to Jason Dodge, and to everyone at MACRO for this opportunity. Thank you also to the poet Brenda Hillman for the special crystal for these rituals. 

From December 11 to the 16

Details at THIS LINK

If you are in Rome PLEASE JOIN ME in making rituals and writing poems!

UNSETTLING Amsterdam in-person

PLEASE R.S.V.P. me at: 88CAConrad (at) Gmail (dot) com

BOTH EVENTS are at Sandberg Instituut

THURSDAY

December 9

18:00 to 20:00

Presenting new work CROW GIFTS The Jasmine Ascension 

FRIDAY

December 10

11:00 to 16:00

(Soma)tic Ritual Workshop

FIVE BODIES: Entanglements 2022

 FOR WORKSHOP DETAILS

PLEASE CLICK HERE

12 (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals in latest issue of THE BELIEVER

 PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ

there’s nothing here but flesh and bone, there’s nothing more

Curated by Eoin Dara for the 2021 TULCA Festival of Visual Arts in Galway, Ireland

The publication is a collection of letters of love and longing, written towards someone or something just out of reach, and includes letters from around the world by Sophia Al-Maria, Claire Biddles, CAConrad, Theodore Kerr, Sekai Machache, Mira Mattar, Mícheál McCann, Nisha Ramayya and Jay G Ying

Please see THIS LINK for details on the publication, as well as the artists and exhibitions

MANY THANKS to Eoin Dara, and to everyone who made the festival possible

This is my letter included in the publication:

Dearest Tre, it is 45 degrees Celsius this afternoon here in the Mojave Desert. I'm missing you, when do you arrive? The intense heat makes things seem further away; how is it doing that? Here is a new poem for you. Wet your finger in your mouth and spell each word onto your chest, and keep that finger moist, my dear!

When you get here, I will introduce you to the 9 animals who are part of my new (Soma)tic poetry ritual. The nocturnal animals include a band of howling coyotes who comb the sand and cactus around the house each night, looking for something delicious to eat. The kangaroo rat is one of my favorite creatures who live in this desert. My binoculars are good enough that we can watch their whiskers and little hands hold sunflower seeds to nibble while balancing on those massive legs, which actually evolved to kick their way out of a rattlesnake's jaws! I had a dream I was breastfeeding a kangaroo rat; it was beautiful! My mother came in the room and screamed, but you calmed her down while I continued to enjoy feeding my friend whose little claws were gently tangled in my chest hair. "Queers can breastfeed?" I nodded to her, "Yes, I used to breastfeed my stuffed animals as a child, didn't you know?" What a strange thing to dream of my mother seeing me feed a small animal with my body and that you had to intervene on my behalf. Queer needs for queer nerves revealing themselves in new ways.

Remember a few years ago, I asked you to cut my arm with your bowie knife, so I could write a poem while observing my cells in their 27-day repair cycle? There is something special about having the body be part of the writing experience, and with these birds and animals in the desert, each one is assigned a spot on my body. For instance, when the glorious quail come bopping into the yard, running across the sand together, I lightly caress my right jawline with my left thumb. Brush it ever so lightly for 30 seconds. Locating an animal on myself is an incredible way to enter the writing. You will LOVE THIS: the kangaroo rat is my left nipple. After the dream, how could it be any other part of me!? The coyotes are the backs of my ears. I can easily imagine that if one of them let me rub the back of their ears, they would like it a lot!

The lizard gets the spot just below my navel. I have no idea why my dear before you ask! You will have plenty of ideas, but hear me say the body needs our intuitive touch, the imagined cartographies of the flesh! Let's rub our bodies when we see creatures; in fact, let's scratch each other's ears when the coyotes howl! Let's do it! I'm ready! The roadrunner is the most aggressive creature who visits, and I rub my spine, all the way up and down I rub it. Chipmunks are my ankles, and I love how they stretch their bodies on the shaded cement patio to cool their bellies while eating peanuts and cherries. One day the roadrunner tried to catch and eat a chipmunk, and I was grateful for my little furry friend's speed. 

Doves are my hands, and I think it is from a television commercial of my childhood about a brand of soap named Dove. It irritates me, but there is nothing I can do about it. If I see doves or even hear them without seeing them, I feel them in my hands. It is not too much to surrender to in the end. And I like the doves and very much enjoy the use of my hands. My gratitude to doves and hands--- the perfect time to say I love you! Solar plexus to solar plexus! Your private forest witch, CAConrad

50th ANNIVERSARY of Diane di Prima's Revolutionary Letters

Please join us for an online event to celebrate this extraordinary book that Ken Chen calls "a time machine toward a better future."

Please go to THIS LINK to register

Please go to THIS LINK to see the new and expanded edition

 

MONDAY, November 22, 2021 

7PM LONDON

2PM NEW YORK

11AM SAN FRANCISCO

Helen Charman, CAConrad, Sophie Lewis, Mira Mattar, Sarah Shin and Francesca Wade

MANY THANKS to Sarah Shin, Silver Press, and London Review Bookshop

FULL MOON Reading (in-person event)

November 19, 2021

Lemington Spa

England

7pm

Please RSVP 

jonathanskin@me.com

MANY THANKS TO JONATHAN SKINNER!

GLITTER IN MY WOUNDS

I am honored that Adam Broomberg printed my poem GLITTER IN MY WOUNDS in his new book of photographs.

PLEASE SEE THIS LINK FOR DETAILS

Many thanks to Adam and the publishers at MACK BOOKS

My poem GLITTER IN MY WOUNDS

Herbs and the Touch of Our Ancestors

My new ritual begins on Samhain, 2021, the gateway to winter. At the moment, there are two main goals: (1) To approximate which generation of my family took the most significant step away from the natural cycles of the planet toward the more mechanized Anthropocene. (2) To begin imagining a system of reconnecting to the planet’s rhythm on a daily, if not permanent, basis.

I have been part of larger occult and pagan communities for decades, and I am grateful for the many things I have learned with these friends. Most of the contact with these communities has been attending Lunar and Solstice festivals. My favorite conversations at these gatherings have always been around our everyday magic. What are we living with after the festival?

My ancestry is Danish and Irish, and to begin my reunion, I am focusing on herbs used for healing and prevention of illness. Which generation started having more bottles of pills in the house than healing plants like Henbane, Goosegrass, Boneset, Feverfew, Meadowsweet, and many others? Over the centuries, what was lost that was too valuable to lose, and what have we gained? How to supplant some of the ancient wisdom alongside the new so both humans and the planet can thrive?

TAROT and POETRY FUNDRAISER

I am offering 3 three-card tarot readings

And 1 phone poetry reading

 

FUNDRAISER FOR THE AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER LESTER SLOAN

A severe storm damaged his archive in storage 

PLEASE VISIT THIS LINK for Kickstarter DETAILS

 

(photo is Lester Sloan and his daughter, the writer Aisha Sabatini Sloan)

3-Poem VIDEO (for an upcoming event)

INTERVIEWED by Jesse Pearson, Apology Magazine

Please use THIS LINK if the button is not working

MONDAY October 18th VOCARIUM READING SERIE

Very excited to perform with

DIANE SEUSS

Introduction by 

ARIANA REINES

MONDAY October 18, 2021 

7PM Eastern Time

Harvard University's 

Woodberry Poetry Room

PLEASE CLICK HERE

(to register for this online event)

MANY THANK to Christina Davis for

the invitation to read with Diane Seuss

My writing on CASTOROCENE

please CLICK HERE

many thanks to George

many thanks to LUX, Scotland

Today my new book is officially released

It makes me very happy to introduce AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect Extinct Vibration

Please visit Wave Books for details:

https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/amanda-paradise 

Please consider purchasing a copy from Open Books at this link:

https://bit.ly/AmandaParadise88

There are just a handful of poetry-only bookstores on the planet 

To celebrate AMANDA PARADISE I made a chapbook that is free if you purchase a copy of the new book, plus one other book from Open Books 

3 Sample poems from AMANDA PARADISE: 

Blush: https://www.blush-lit.com/caconrad 

The Believer: https://believermag.com/logger/ca-conrad/ 

The New York Times: https://bit.ly/NewYorkTimesArtAndDesign 

Thank you for supporting independent poetry! 

New interview with me in Poets and Writers

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ