CAConrad: Advanced Elvis Course

When CAConrad’s reverence for the King puts them on a trip to Memphis, the result is this wild joyride of a book, a homage that is bursting with love and twisted sincerity. Drawing on sources as disparate as graffiti, talk-show interviews, phone messages, and poetry, Conrad assembles a collage that celebrates while laughing with the cult of Elvis. Advanced Elvis Course is a psychedelic road trip – a transcendental portrait of a man who changed music and America forever, seen through the eyes of those for whom he still lives.

CACONRAD has been working with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975. They are the author of numerous poetry collections, and have received many grants and awards, including most recently the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. They regularly teach at Columbia University in New York City and at the Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam.