In this beautiful debut from an exciting new poet, Alexa Patrick’s REMEDIES FOR DISAPPEARING memorializes Blackness in its quiet and unexpected forms, bringing the peripheral into focus. These poems muddy Black life and death, observe lineage and love stories, and question what “disappearing” teaches about Blackness and bodies.
REMEDIES FOR DISAPPEARING is gritty, sharp, and formally inventive, demonstrating Patrick’s imaginative curiosity, lyrical restraint, and confidence in her handling of language. Moments of aphoristic confession are balanced with imagistic precision as the speaker recounts the ways her aunties, sisters, and even herself have disappeared in order to survive.
Courtney Conrad’s powerful debut I AM EVIDENCE interrogates the tensions within Caribbean migration, gender-based violence and national politics. Migrating from Kingston as a teenager, she is unflinching in her attempts to capture the vibrancy and violence of her experiences in both the UK and Jamaica. Her poetry draws together subversive diasporic imagery, national political commentary and shatteringly personal narrative in its exacting response to the political corruption and violence she witnessed as a young girl in Jamaica in the wake of its colonial subjugation under the British Empire. The themes of her work stretch across state- and gender-based violence, religion, raw bodily introspection and lush cultural memorabilia that reimagines the warmth and blood of both her homes.
Alexa Patrick (she/her) is a vocalist and poet from Connecticut. She is the author of REMEDIES FOR DISAPPEARING (Haymarket Books, 2023) and holds fellowships from Cave Canem, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and more. In spring 2023, Alexa made her stage production debut as UN/SUNG in the opera WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED (dir. Bill T. Jones). You may find her work in publications including Adroit, CRWN Magazine, and The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic. Visit alexapatrick.com for more.
Courtney Conrad is an award-winning poet born and raised in Jamaica and currently based in London. Migrating from Kingston as a teenager, Courtney’s poetry interlaces subversive diasporic image, national political commentary and shatteringly personal narrative. Her poetry seeks to sensitively archive the political corruption and violence she witnessed as a young girl in Jamaica in the wake of its colonial subjugation under the British Empire. Courtney is unflinching in her attempts to uniquely capture the vibrance and violence of her experiences in the UK and Jamaica. Her poem thematics stretch across state and gender-based violence, delicate love vignettes, religion, raw bodily introspection and lush cultural memorabilia that reimagine the warmth and blood of both her homes. Courtney is the author of_ _I AM EVIDENCE (Blood Axe Books, 2023). Visitcourtneyconradpoet.com for more.
