You Don't Have What It Takes to Be My Nemesis: And Other (Soma)tics

by C.A. Conrad

A captivating, original call for creative freedom from one of the most singular poets of our time

'this mechanistic world . . . has required me to FIND MY BODY to FIND MY PLANET in order to find my poetry'

Since their inception in 2005, CAConrad's (soma)tic poems have acted as an urgent appeal for an embodied, unfettered creative practice. Rooted in the Sanskrit 'soma', meaning 'to press and be newly born', and the Greek-derived 'somatic', relating to the body, Conrad's (soma)tic poetry reaches out from electrifying, esoteric rituals. Their methods are elaborate, and the results are one, for instance, might begin by seeing the poet flood their body with the field calls of extinct animals - and end not only in a consideration of survivor's guilt and the destruction of ecosystems, but also in an elated sense of the presence, close at hand, of the many friends and lovers they lost to AIDS.

Conrad draws on these rituals to enter a political, physical and spiritual state of consciousness, meditating on ecology, queerness and grief in powerful, dreamlike poetry that invites us to engage with the essence of things. This new selection is a testimony to poetry's capacity to reconnect us with the present moment and put an end to the alienation we from our bodies, our surroundings, our planet.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, Fiction

214 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 25, 2023

About the author

CAConrad’s childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. He is the author of 9 books of poetry and essays the latest While Standing In Line For Death is forthcoming from Wave Books in September 2017. He is a Pew Fellow and has also received fellowships from Lannan Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Headlands Center for the Arts, Banff, RADAR, Flying Ojbect and Ucross. For his books, essays, and details on the documentary The Book of Conrad (Delinquent Films, 2016), please visit http://CAConrad.blogspot.com

Reviews

[Elina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Discovering CA Conrad’s poetry has changed my life, truly. What a beautiful collection this book is, this might have healed me and spoken to my soul. To the poet astronauts that were, are and will be.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It is our duty as poets and others who have not lost our jagged, creative edges to resist the urge to subdue our spirits and lose ourselves in the hypnotic beep of machines, of war, in the banal need for power and things. With our poems and creative core, we must return this world to its seismic levels of wildness.” So writes CA Conrad in their introduction to You Don’t Have What It Takes To Be My Nemesis: And Other (Soma)tics, a wholly singular collection of poetry doubling as a call to rethink the way we approach poetry (and creativity in general) with the terms and tools of capitalism and mechanistic labour. The book is formed of “24 (Soma)tic poetry rituals and their resulting poems”: (Soma)tic involving the bridging of the divine and the tissue (or the nervous system) through the mental and bodily practices (rituals) that create “the space for language to appear”. Although my inner cynic read some of these rituals and thought “this is exactly what people who hate poets think poets are like”, I could not argue with the results (and, as a result, probably should consider my own prejudices against things that seem too rooted in kind of Americanised alternative spirituality). The poems are so painfully alive and daring and visceral, truly surpassing all the trappings of the modern world to reach right through to the guts and heart and further, deeper. Conrad is funny, furious, profoundly committed to life (“it hurts to admit I love being alive”), and offers up not just poems that liberate but a practice with the real potential to change how we perceive the act of creation under capitalism. I have dozens of lines I want to share, so much queer rage, but no space left — you’ll have to read for yourself.

[George Williams Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

CAConrad is a beautiful soul, their curiosity for life and the rituals ((soma)tics) featured in this book alongside their poetic results have affected me greatly. I read this book whilst starting to practice the tools for creativity suggested by ‘the artists way’ and Conrad’s poetics of living have infiltrated the practice, they have forced me into beautiful presence in moments I would have otherwise let pass over me.

I have to admit I did not care too much for Conrad’s prose but the rituals that they result from are awe inspiring. I read this book in a single restless sitting of about 2 hours, it has not left me since. I laughed and cried. I will carry Conrad with me, as I feed birds each day and observe their behaviour, carry them with me when I write my own prose, when I burn my writting so as to mix it into food stuff and eat my words.

I recommend to anyone who writes or wishes to do so!

[ev · Rating 4 out of 5]

An artist all consumed by their work is so powerful

[Chlo · Rating 5 out of 5]

CA finds a way to leave such an imprint on my soul with every form they allow the poems to take & every word they pencil. Through poetry they spend every single day of their life fighting to heal the world, themselves & protect queer lives. I had the honour of meeting them this year & having this copy signed, this collection shall always be treasured, as will all their work for me.