CAConrad has worked with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975; their honors include a Lambda Literary Award. As a young poet, they lived in Philadelphia, where they lost many loved ones during the early years of the AIDS crisis, as documented in the essay “SIN BUG: AIDS, Poetry, and Queer Resilience in Philadelphia.” Conrad is the author of many books of poetry, including AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect Extinct Vibration and While Standing in Line for Death.
Conrad was an enthusiastic member of the Kelly Writers House community from close to its founding, as evidenced by their PennSound author page, where the earliest recording you'll find is a 2001 appearance on Live at the Writers House reading from Advanced Elvis Course. Given their long involvement with KWH and PennSound — resulting in a healthy collection of readings, talks, interviews, performances, and more — it's no stretch to suggest that you can see a career worthy of lifetime recognition take shape just by browsing the locations and dates of the three dozen events between 2001 and 2019 archived there. Among those many recordings, my personal favorite (for obvious reasons) is the 2007 Studio 111 Session that I engineered, which highlights poems from The Book of Frank and Deviant Propulsion as well as the complete chapbook (Soma)tic Midge. In effect it was my first introduction to their poetry — Charles Bernstein had introduced me to both Conrad and Frank Sherlock at a reading the week before and encouraged me to set up sessions with the two close friends and collaborators — but by the end of that evening I was a lifelong fan.
We at PennSound send our congratulations to Conrad and the rest of the formidable class of 2022 Lilly Prize winners. You can browse PennSound's CAConrad author page by clicking here.
