Posts Tagged ‘CAConrad’

Contact: Frank Sherlock
Telephone: (267)230-5861
Email: Frank.Sherlock@gmail.com

(Philadelphia, PA) In celebration of the newly released poetry collaboration entitled The City Real & Imagined, the ICA will host a reading/performance by CA Conrad & Frank Sherlock on Wednesday February 3 at 8pm.

The poets will read from their work during the event, which also features a visual presentation from photographer Zoe Strauss.

Conrad and Sherlock have engaged in many collaborative efforts in the city of Philadelphia for more than a decade. Their combined endeavors have included curatorial work, political activism, literary projects, and a close working friendship. The culmination of their shared actions has resulted in The City Real & Imagined, a new Heretical Texts title from Factory School Books. This book-length poem was fueled from walks through Philadelphia, which included sharing both their common and divergent experiences of their city with each other.

Poet/critic Rob Halpern of Nonsite Collective says, “Through their (Conrad’s & Sherlock’s) modes of practice, the poem becomes a form assumed by lived social relations under the pressure of so many forces conspiring against us. What’s more, the poem becomes not only a formal expression of dissent, but the insurgent means by which “dissensus” might potentially and provisionally be organized within contested social spaces and public discourses.”

The book release party will include a slide presentation from Zoe Strauss, who is a Philadelphia native, USA Gund Fellow and  recipient of a Pew Fellowship. Her work is featured on the cover of The City Real & Imagined.

The ICA event is an opportunity to wander with Conrad & Sherlock through their psychogeographical work and play. The event will include peoples’ histories and magical traditions rooted in the first capital of the American possible- the city of Philadelphia. Landmarks that remain standing will be visited, citizens that live on in memory will be revisited, and provocations for future mappings of a real & imagined city will be shared.

(Philadelphia, PA, December 31, 2009) The publisher of FairiesInAmerica.com is pleased to announce a new poetry editor for Bardic Sepulchral, CAConrad. He is reviewing all poetry submissions for Bardic Sepulchral and can be reached at CAConrad@fairiesinamerica.com.

CAConrad is a nationally acclaimed poet and performer. The son of white trash asphyxiation, his childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift.

Over the course of the last 2 years, CAConrad has published three books: Deviant Propulsion, by Soft Skull Press, a book that inspired a Publisher’s Weekly reviewer to draw parallels between his work and the poetry of Allen Ginsberg; The Book of Frank, a magical book of poems that brings to life an alter ego character who speaks a continual stream of uncensored truths, won the Gil Ott Book Award and was published this year; and The Advanced Elvis Course, also by Soft Skull Press in 2009 is a rollicking and surreal book about the mythological Elvis. In 2010, Factory School will publish a collaboration with poet Frank Sherlock titled The City Real & Imagined.

Elizabeth Kirwin, publisher and editor of FairiesInAmerica.com, is pleased to be working with CAConrad. She wanted to bring his approach to poetics to FairiesInAmerica.com.

Kirwin remarked, “During the 1990s, CAConrad introduced me to the American Pagan movement and the radical faeries, feminism, and the art of writing concise verse. CAConrad was the first person to help me to understand my shifting gender identity was a way of manifesting my own magic. CAConrad also made me see that the divisions within the GLBT movement were simply imagined, and could easily be overcome by everyday personal action.” Website visitors will notice a pansexual approach to the faery movement (representing all sexualities on the continuum) and a wide scope on gender.

CAConrad will be giving public readings of his recent work in 2010. On February 3rd he will perform at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Lucy Gallun will give a lecture on her video installation at 6:30pm, and a book party for The City Real & Imagined (Factory School, 2010) by CAConrad & Frank Sherlock will occur at 8pm with Zoe Strauss. Zoe Strauss provided the book cover photograph, and will be presenting a slide show of her work and also selling her photography book America (AMMO Books, 2008).

On February 4th CAConrad & Ana Bozicevic will read at Stockton College in New Jersey. CAConrad will read at Philadelphia’s Temple University on February 11th for the Creative Writing Program. Look for these and other related events to be posted on the home page of FairiesInAmerica.com or at CAConradEVENTS.blogspot.com.

FairiesInAmerica.com was launched in April 2008 as a collective effort to accurately represent the creativity and unique philosophies of the faery community. The website publishes performance art, music, poetry, writing and visual art. FairiesInAmerica.com also features essays on sexuality, gender, spirituality and more. Currently, membership to the website is free and those who join may post to the blog, or comment on blogs or pages on the website.

Email CAConrad@fairiesinamerica.com to contribute original poetry for inclusion on the website or visit Bardic Sepulchral.