Front cover of Cori Bratby-Rudd’s
Cori Bratby-Rudd (Critical Studies MFA 19) has released her first chapbook titled Cage of Eden (Finishing Line Press), now available for pre-order.
The collection, which Bratby-Rudd began writing while studying at CalArts, has been described by poet and composer Ryka Aoki (He Mele a Hilo; Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul) as “elegant, beguiling, almost brutally thoughtful.” Aoki further observed that the poems allow readers space to “populate with contemplations, realizations, and queernesses of their own.”
School of Critical Studies faculty Anthony McCann (Shadowlands: Fear and Freedom at the Oregon Standoff) also offered praise:
These compelling, proudly youthful poems directly and indirectly ask some of the basic, urgent questions of our moment: how to dwell for real with the damaged and gorgeous Earth; how to be with each other in our toxic Now; how to live and love as contaminated beings, with no truly reasonable expectation of an enduring future for our troubled civilization.
Bratby-Rudd is an LA-based queer writer and co-founder of Influx Collectiv(e)’s Queer Poetry Reading Series. Her writing has appeared in various publications, including Ms. Magazine, The Gordian Review, Califragile, PANK Magazine, Entropy, and Crab Fat Magazine. Bratby-Rudd is a Lambda Literary 2018 Emerging Writer nominee and a semi-finalist for YesYes Books’ 2019 Pamet River Prize.
Bratby-Rudd also edited the Under the Belly of the Beast anthology, which was released by Dissonance Press earlier this year. Check out 24700’s Q&A about the anthology with Bratby-Rudd here.