Read to Me from… Water I Won’t Touch by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
"When I read Water I Won't Touch, I dog-eared many pages, underlined many lines. Candrilli’s poems are intimate, nimble, glinting with tenderness, and an astonishing lyricism. The physicality of violence electrifies memory, a refusal to conform and the euphoria of love sweetens the future. Language this good, this deftly composed fills me with gratitude. Candrilli is a fearless and brilliant poet." - Eduardo C. Corral
On Read to Me, we practice the essential, joyous skill inside great writing — listening. We listen for what we love in the work, and then put words to why it's so, so good
Today, we read “Transgender Heroic: All This Ridiculous Flesh” by Kayleb Rae Candrilli, from their 2021 poetry collection, WATER I WON'T TOUCH. We get to let this long poem sequence carry us on its currents. We get to feel its physical and spiritual transfiguration, and be inside its world-making love.
Plus, a tiny manifesto on the radical, strange pleasure of listening to poetry with an easy ear.
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Photo by Jackie Papanier
Kayleb Rae Candrilli is a 2019 Whiting Award Winner in poetry and the author of Water I Won't Touch (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), All the Gay Saints (Saturnalia, 2020), and What Runs Over (YesYes Books, 2017).
Candrilli was a 2017 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in transgender poetry and a 2017 finalist for the American Book Fest's Best Book Award in LGBTQ Non-Fiction.
They have received fellowships from Lambda Literary and are published or forthcoming in Poetry, The American Poetry Review, American Poets, TriQuarterly, Boston Review, and many others.
They live in Philadelphia with their partner.
Website: www.krcandrilli.com
IG: @kayleb_rae