Malaria, Poems Format: Paperback

Malaria kills nearly one million people each year. Hundreds of millions more are sickened by the disease, and many of them are permanently disabled. Billions are spent each year to understand it. Researchers know the molecular details of the interaction between the mosquito and our own red blood cells, and the myriad ways in which malaria impacts the global economy and the advancement of humanity. But what of the public? Though its story is told in thousands of articles and in hundreds of books, many in the developed world are unaware of how prevalent malaria still is. Malaria, Poems testifies to the importance of bridging the chasm between science and art. It adds thread to a tattered and tragic global narrative; it is poetry’s attempt to reawaken care in a cold case that keeps killing. According to Cicero the aim of the orator is threefold: to teach, to delight, and to move. Poets during the renaissance embraced this idea, and Malaria, Poems reinvigorates it. Allen Ginsberg called for a poetry of social consciousness, a “bare knuckle warrior poetics.” Cameron Conaway, a former MMA fighter, offers Malaria, Poems both as a response to Ginsberg’s call and as a new call to contemporary poetry.

Cameron Conaway is the author of six books, including Malaria, Poems, an NPR Best Book of 2014. He is a recipient of the 2016 Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative Fellowship, an honor given to one journalist each year, and his work has appeared in publications such as Newsweek, ESPN, The Guardian, Reuters, NPR, Forbes, The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, and Stanford Social Innovation Review, among others. Conaway has received grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the International Reporting Project, nominations for a National Magazine Award and a Pushcart Prize, and writing residencies from Penn State University, the Wellcome Trust, and the University of Arizona. He lives in San Francisco. Learn more at cameronconaway.com.