Episode 49: CAConrad
Rachel Zucker speaks with poet CAConrad about their Somatic poetry rituals, their childhood in rural Western Pennsylvania, becoming an avid reader, running away from home, the AIDS epidemic, writing The Book of Frank over an 18 year period, anti-efficiency, marketing research, the 1998 murder of CA’s boyfriend, Earth, using a somatic ritual to cure a pernicious depression, and CA’s recently published book, While Standing In Line for Death. CAConrad describes their writing process, how to get ahead of one’s internal editor, revision, combating misogyny, animal rights activism, ACT UP, ecological disaster, ecopoetics, the vibrational absence of extinct species being replaced by the din of humanity, white rhinos, Walmart, the end of empire, teaching, the myth of writer’s block, how to write inside the hardest things, roadkill memorials, being alone, and accepting the elements.
Books by CAConrad
While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books, 2017)
Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners (Wave Books, 2015)
ECODEVIANCE: (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness (Wave Books, 2014)
A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon: New (Soma)tics (Wave Books, 2012)
The Book of Frank (Wave Books, 2010)
Advanced Elvis Course (Soft Skull Press, 2009)
Other Writers/Artists/Makers Mentioned in the Episode
Other Relevant Links
