First Light - by Ca Conrad (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"One of America's most legendary living poets."-Ocean Vuong

In this powerful meditation on sunrise, beloved poet CAConrad presents an electrifying new collection of poems.

Guided by a (Soma)tic poetry ritual for writing while observing sunrise--in person and across the world via live public webcam footage--First Light is permeated with the immediacy of living through anthropocenic times and the murmurs of relations past and present. CAConrad's distinctive poems emerge from the page in sculptural forms, which have been shown in museum and gallery exhibitions in the US and around the world. At once contemplative and stirring, these poems "sing on behalf of the whole organism."

Review Quotes

"One of America's most legendary living poets."
-Ocean Vuong

"How are we to believe in Earth if we can't believe in the Heavens? In the plodding directionlessness of the present, we are lost without the astral maps. I want to point out too CAConrad's signature care for the visual impact of the poem. The disciplined shaping means that the poetic line here not only carries sound and sentiment but builds toward a striking sculptural presence. CAConrad's is poetry that reaches for multidimensionality, and in this poem, the arc and increment of indentation is a convincer, moving with and toward the poem's conclusion."
-Anne Boyer, The New York Times

"Emerging from the queer visionary tradition of Whitman and Ginsberg, the cornerstone of CAConrad's practice is a series of rituals and instructions which their readers are invited to share in... CAConrad's aim is to unplug from the corporate machine and reconnect themselves and their readers with the earth and animals and other people. This is poetry with real ambition that wants to hug us - it's big, it's queer and, like paprika, you can never have enough of it."
-Philip Terry, The Guardian

"They rely on a (Soma)tic poetry ritual to build their poems, which undulate down the middle of the page, resembling mushrooms and sprouts with smooth edges that curve like shells or leaves. Foregoing punctuation, CAConrad's writing requires a heightened focus, offering a gentle reminder to 'retire the invisible / arm reaching in and / out of our attention.' These pieces respond to the need to stop mourning, the 'need to fall in love again with the world as it is, not as it was.' It might be a stretch to say the collection is hopeful, but as the speaker asserts, 'enough poems have been / wasted on / human cruelty / we dig hard to / find the / other / world.' There is still time, CAConrad suggests, to 'learn how / to live so / wilderness / never / becomes / mythology.' As the climate crisis intensifies, these affecting and imaginative poems offer readers a space to reflect on what still remains."
-Publishers Weekly

About the Author

CAConrad works with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual and has been doing so for over 50 years. Their latest book is First Light (Wave Books, 2027). They are also the author of Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return (Wave Books, 2024), and AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect Extinct Vibration (Wave Books, 2021). The Book of Frank is now available in twelve different languages. Other titles include While Standing in the Line for Death, ECODEVIANCE: (Soma)tic for the Future Wilderness, and A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon: New (Soma)tics. They received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a PEN award, a Creative Capital grant, a Pew Fellowship, a Lambda Literary Award, and a Believer Magazine Book Award. With Robert Dewhurst and Joshua Beckman, they co-edited Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners. They exhibit their poems as sculpture with recent shows in Edinburgh, London, Hamburg, Melbourne, Porto, and Chicago. They teach at Sandberg Art Institute and De Ateliers in Amsterdam, and at Bard College's MFA program. They live in Greenfield, Massachusetts.