Practitioner Joy

Rich Murphy’s Practitioner Joy is the poet’s confrontation with his practice as a poet and, at least in part, his inevitable death. When outside Plato’s Cave, capitalism’s crisis horizon threatens with precarious neoliberalism, Wendy Brown’s “every conduct is economic conduct,” cyber algorithms and Shoshana Zuboff’s “I once was mine; now I am theirs,” and Yuval Noah Harari’s and Stephen Hawking’s “Homo Deus” (a new species of humans from the loins of the wealthy only), prophetic voices are needed in an effort to counter and perhaps change the narrative’s and the future’s direction. This collection of poems attempts to do just that. It is an alternative voice offering a way forward.

Rich Murphy's First Aid was published by Resource Publications at Wipf and Stock in summer of 2023. Meme Measure, a collection of poems, was published by Resource Publications at Wipf and Stock in 2022. His poetry has won The Poetry Prize at Press Americana twice Americana (2013) and The Left Behind (2021) and Gival Press Poetry Prize Voyeur (2008). Space Craft by Resource Publications at Wipf and Stock also came out in 2021. Books Prophet Voice Now, essays published by Common Ground Research Network and Practitioner Joy, poetry by Resource Publications at Wipf and Stock were published in 2020. He has published nine other collections of poetry.