Author: CA Conrad
Publisher: Penguin
Paperback
Staff Picks! Oisín says…
What I love about CA Conrad’s writing is that there is no difference between life and writing - it’s all there. They are writing “(soma)tic poetry.” Soma is a Sanskrit word that means ‘to press and be newly born’ and Somatic means ‘relating to the body’. They are really embodied in their writing, but so is everything else - animals around them, friends who have died from AIDS and ecosystems both environmental and political. They write with an urgency that totally rejects political apathy and so belongs to this moment (and every other one before). The language is economic and relatable, the form is kind of dreamlike but laid out like a desire path - we can follow them intuitively and they’re made by us all together.