Malaria, Poems

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.

"Poetry arises when it must and when it's most needed. These poems are needed. Conaway's 'Malaria' is a must read."
--Jimmy Santiago Baca, Winner of the American Book Award

"In the hands of this innovative and galvanizing poet, these narratives are testaments of families broken by malaria, of stillborn children, of the damaged social and political systems that break down in the rippling circumference of the illness. And when the narrator of "Density Slant" says "Easier / to gift the gone / than give the living" we, too, become complicit witnesses to the apathy surrounding malaria-and all of its metaphorical correlatives. This is a frightening and important book."
--Adrian Matejka, 2014 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry

"This book of poems can inspire us to redirect our intelligence and creativity in order to stop the ecological destruction that has spread malaria, and to seek the collective solutions for eradicating this disease."
--Dr. Vandana Shiva, recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and the Sydney Peace Prize

"Malaria, Poems will change how scientists view the arts and how artists view the sciences. We believe this book will lead to increased collaborations across long disconnected academic departments and global health sectors. There are countless ways to fight malaria; poetry must now be taken seriously as one of them."
--MalariaWorld

"A novel approach to an ancient problem, these poems powerfully weave together the scientific facts of malaria with moving glimpses into its unsettling human toll."
--Sonia Shah, author of The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years

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.