While Standing in Line for Death

"From these rituals come notes; from those notes come poems; and from those poems comes not just a view into his process, but an entrance into another present." --Boston Globe

After his boyfriend Earth's murder, CAConrad was looking for a (Soma)tic poetry ritual to overcome his depression. This new book of eighteen rituals and their resulting poems contains that success, along with other political actions and exercises that testify to poetry's ability to reconnect us and help put an end to our alienation from the planet.

unfastened

in the backseat a

portion of the music is

mucus flying into stillness

at what point do we submit

to the authority of flowers

at what point after it enters

the mouth is it no longer in the

mouth but the throat the colon

making sumptuous death of the world

this is what crossing the line gains

no need to pretend we

are the people we

want to be in

the next life

bone under

tongue drives

taste of snow to metal...

CAConrad is the author of ECODEVIANCE: (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness, A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon, and The Book of Frank, as well as several other books of poetry and essays. Most recently, he has co-edited Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners. A 2014 Lannan Fellow, a 2013 MacDowell Fellow, and a 2011 Pew Fellow, he also conducts workshops on (Soma)tic poetry and Ecopoetics.