CAConrad’s 2018 recommended reading

We’ve asked our authors to submit highlights from their reading this year— anything outstanding they read during the year and want to share, whether published this year or not. As a countermeasure/contrast to the typical year-end Best Of lists compiled by various mainstream media outlets (which are often linked to ad buys, or shared parent companies, o did you not know that!?), expect these personal lists to point in less expected directions. We’ll be posting our poets’ picks as they come in over the next week or two. Enjoy. —Bloof

CAConrad
The City Real & Imagined

CAConrad is the author of nine books of poetry and essays, the latest is titled While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books, 2017). A recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts for Literature, they also received the Believer Magazine Book Award and the Gil Ott Book Award. CA is currently working on a (Soma)tic poetry ritual titled, “Resurrect Extinct Vibration,” which investigates effects the vibrational absence of recently extinct species has on the body of the poet and the poems. They teach regularly at the Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam, and their books, essays, films, interviews, rituals and other publications can be found online at their website.

The Library of Congress Censored Interview by CAConrad with Jasmine Platt is available as a free PDF in our Process Pamphlets series.

Poetry is how I spend my life, reading and writing it. We are living in the most abundant and sumptuous time for publishing poetry and I can no longer entertain people who whine to me that they would rather be living in times of poetry’s past. Each year I enjoy focusing on one book at a time while also reading favorite poems and passages of previously loved books. This year I relished 18 closely lived-with books, and they are the soundtrack of my 2018. I remember which book I was reading on the solstices, equinoxes, New and Full Moons, and the times with my truck driver boyfriend Tre reading out loud together late into the night while gazing out his truck window at the dome of stars over Florida, Alabama, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Montana, and Idaho. Love and Poetry is the same banquet! Something utterly sacred about these banquets! Thank you, Shanna Compton, for asking Bloof authors for reading lists! These are the 18 books that made my 2018 amazing, and quite grateful to be alive:

RED
Chase Berggrun
(Birds, LLC, 2018)

Something for Everybody
Anselm Berrigan
(Wave Books, 2018)

Something for Everybody by Anselm Berrigan

Mock Through Rasping Crow
billy cancel
(BlazeVOX, 2017)

Mock Through Rasping Crow by billy cancel

Heaven Is All Goodbyes
Tongo Eisen-Martin
(City Lights, 2018)

Heaven Is All Goodbyes by Tongo Eisen-Martin

Hairdo
Rachel B. Glaser
(The Song Cave, 2017)

Click & Collect
Colin Herd
(Boiler House, 2017)

Good Stock Strange Blood
Dawn Lundy Martin
(Coffee House, 2017)

Good Stock Strange Blood by Dawn Lundy Martin

Stereo(TYPE)
Jonah Mixon-Webster
(Ahsahta, 2018)

Evolution
Eileen Myles
(Grove Atlantic, 2018)

The Length of This Gap
Kristen E. Nelson
(Damaged Goods, 2018)

The Length of This Gap by Kristen E. Nelson

Ever Really Hear It
Soham Patel
(Subito Press, 2018)

De/Compositions
Nat Raha
(Enjoy Your Homes, 2017)

Lo Terciario / The Tertiary
Raquel Salas Rivera
(Timeless, Infinite Light)

Soho
Richard Scott
(Faber & Faber, 2018)

Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry
Sarah Shin & Rebecca Tamás, editors
Contributors: Kaveh Akbar, Rachael Allen, Nuar Alsadir, Khairani Barokka, Emily Berry, A.K. Blakemore, Jen Calleja, Vahni Capildeo, Kayo Chingonyi, Elinor Cleghorn, CAConrad, Nia Davies, Kate Duckney, Livia Franchini, Will Harris, Caspar Heinemann, Lucy Ives, Rebecca May Johnson, Bhanu Kapil, Amy Key, Daisy Lafarge, Dorothea Lasky, Ursula K. Le Guin, Francesca Lisette, Canisia Lubrin, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Lucy Mercer, Hoa Nguyen, Rebecca Perry, Nat Raha, Nisha Ramayya, Ariana Reines, Sophie Robinson, Erica Scourti, Dolly Turing, Jane Yeh
(Ignota, 2018)