Gorgoneion

Winner of the 2021 Noemi Press Book Award in Poetry. Longlisted for the 2023 PEN America Open Book Award.

Gorgoneion explores the us or them mentality that has permeated U.S. culture since the mid-2010s. Whether personal, political or historical, this collection constantly asks the questions "what are we doing?" and "where do we go from here?" Taking on a number of social justice issues, Gorgoneion weaves in wit and humor to add levity to the more somber subject matter throughout the collection. In moments, it reflects a tender interiority and desire to belong while using this sense of alienation to poke holes in the logic of groupthink.

"Casey Rocheteau's Gorgoneion is a thousand-headed beauty lithely slithering from the past, present, and future as it examines the nature and pervasiveness of empire. What's found here in these poems is a study of hucksters, devils, tricksters, and 'Sudden Despot's. Personae get remixed and recontextualized like Donald Trump a la Norma Desmond and Kanye West a la Jim and Alex Jones. Through a myriad of masks, Gorgoneion conjures up evil then stares it down to the realm of the 'marblestuck.' Yes, the acerbic wit and humor we've come to know from Rocheteau's work is present, yet make no mistake, this book holds back nothing in its bite."--Tommye Blount, author of Fantasia for the Man in Blue

Poetry. African & African American Studies. LGBTQ+ Studies.

Casey Rocheteau is an author, filmmaker & visual/sound artist living in Detroit, Michigan. Winner of inaugural Write A House permanent residency in 2014, Rocheteau resides in a home they won with poems. They are a Callaloo Writer's Workshop, Cave Canem, and Bread Loaf Writers' Conference fellow. Rocheteau often works with primary documentation and collage in what they call a haintological practice. This fixation upon specters of the past haunting the present//living impact upon the future informs their work across genres.