RADIANT WOUND
Radiant Wound is both an anthem and a lament, a poetic exploration of life between cultures, languages, and the landscapes of Côte d'Ivoire. In this debut collection, Cara Waterfall captures the vibrant textures and deep dissonances of life abroad after the Second Ivorian Civil War, navigating the complex experience of being a geographical, cultural, and linguistic outsider. Her verses take readers through striking scenes: from the crocodile-guarded presidential palace in Yamoussoukro and the colonial past of Grand-Bassam to the intimate spaces of a woodcarver’s studio and the Gbangbo River, where the laundrymen wash clothes.
Supported by a National Geographic Glimpse Correspondents Program grant in 2012, Waterfall’s poems draw from the stories and encounters she gathered for her features, "Rebelles: Ivoirian women fight for change" and "Art as Reconciliation." Her collection breathes life into voices often unheard, from a young girl making charcoal in San Pedro to HIV-positive women and vulnerable children in Yopougon, and even the neglected animals of the Abidjan Zoo. Radiant Wound reflects on tradition, resilience, and survival, bearing witness to the long, imperfect journey toward healing.
Poetry
ISBN: 978-1-963115-77-2
Publication Date: May 20, 2025
Radiant Wound is both an anthem and a lament, a poetic exploration of life between cultures, languages, and the landscapes of Côte d'Ivoire. In this debut collection, Cara Waterfall captures the vibrant textures and deep dissonances of life abroad after the Second Ivorian Civil War, navigating the complex experience of being a geographical, cultural, and linguistic outsider. Her verses take readers through striking scenes: from the crocodile-guarded presidential palace in Yamoussoukro and the colonial past of Grand-Bassam to the intimate spaces of a woodcarver’s studio and the Gbangbo River, where the laundrymen wash clothes.
Supported by a National Geographic Glimpse Correspondents Program grant in 2012, Waterfall’s poems draw from the stories and encounters she gathered for her features, "Rebelles: Ivoirian women fight for change" and "Art as Reconciliation." Her collection breathes life into voices often unheard, from a young girl making charcoal in San Pedro to HIV-positive women and vulnerable children in Yopougon, and even the neglected animals of the Abidjan Zoo. Radiant Wound reflects on tradition, resilience, and survival, bearing witness to the long, imperfect journey toward healing.
Poetry
ISBN: 978-1-963115-77-2
Publication Date: May 20, 2025
Radiant Wound is both an anthem and a lament, a poetic exploration of life between cultures, languages, and the landscapes of Côte d'Ivoire. In this debut collection, Cara Waterfall captures the vibrant textures and deep dissonances of life abroad after the Second Ivorian Civil War, navigating the complex experience of being a geographical, cultural, and linguistic outsider. Her verses take readers through striking scenes: from the crocodile-guarded presidential palace in Yamoussoukro and the colonial past of Grand-Bassam to the intimate spaces of a woodcarver’s studio and the Gbangbo River, where the laundrymen wash clothes.
Supported by a National Geographic Glimpse Correspondents Program grant in 2012, Waterfall’s poems draw from the stories and encounters she gathered for her features, "Rebelles: Ivoirian women fight for change" and "Art as Reconciliation." Her collection breathes life into voices often unheard, from a young girl making charcoal in San Pedro to HIV-positive women and vulnerable children in Yopougon, and even the neglected animals of the Abidjan Zoo. Radiant Wound reflects on tradition, resilience, and survival, bearing witness to the long, imperfect journey toward healing.
Poetry
ISBN: 978-1-963115-77-2
Publication Date: May 20, 2025
Praise for RADIANT WOUND
Cara Waterfall’s stunning debut, Radiant Wound, places us alongside her life in Côte d'Ivoire after the second civil war. Amidst unsparing dailiness of political crisis, language is chiseled and wildly alive in her hands as she exposes “the gnarled root of memory / raking its debris / with metal teeth,” and the impact of intergenerational trauma: “We heal ragged / even on the inside, pain inlaid / like an everlasting nacre.” Her watchful “eye” takes in the remarkable lives and harrowing fractures of Abidjan; and her lyrical “I” continually remakes self, allowing place to change her. “You who mothered me from loneliness” she addresses in Ode to Second Mothers, “how do you render such tenderness / when there is none?” In artful and lucid aubades, self-portraits, odes, laments, and haibun, Cara Waterfall possesses the rare ability to write into “the between-work” of a land, a culture, a language and reveal the radiant remnants of survival, "still / praise what was salvaged: / ravaged, now rising."
~ Jennifer K. Sweeney, award-winning author of four books of poetry, including Foxlogic, Fireweed, winner of the Backwaters Prize from Backwaters Press/University of Nebraska, the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and the Perugia Press Prize.
Each poem in Radiant Wound feels like an exclusive invitation into a private room. Pulsing, this collection is alive. Waterfall places an entire world under a microscope, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. Navigating the complexity of memory and identity, these poems slither around the reader, creating a vivid, three-dimensional experience that invites us to reflect on the proximity of our own stories.
~ Chelene Knight, award-winning writer of Junie and Dear Current Occupant.
About CARA WATERFALL
Cara Waterfall is an Ottawa-born, Côte d’Ivoire-based poet, storyteller and mentor who teaches other writers how to sustain thriving, creative practices and reclaim their artistic identities. Her work frequently navigates the complexities of identity, place and intergenerational memory. She has post-graduate diplomas in Poetry & Lyric Discourse from SFU's The Writer’s Studio, where she was mentored by Vancouver Poet Laureate, Fiona Tinwei Lam, and from the London School of Journalism. Her poems have appeared widely, including Best Canadian Poetry, SWWIM and The Night Heron Barks. She won PULPLiterature's 2023 Magpie Award for Poetry, Room’s 2018 Short Forms and 2020 Poetry Contests. She is a three-time finalist for Radar Poetry’s The Coniston Prize and was shortlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize. Her debut poetry collection, Radiant Wound, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in May 2025, and explores her life in Abidjan after the second civil war. She recently finished her second poetry manuscript, The Lost Stations, and is working on a third about Nouchi, a hybrid language that unites crucial threads of Côte d’Ivoire's identity. Subscribe to Cara's Substack, Archipel, an ongoing dialogue between poets and creatives of all kinds, celebrating the ways we connect through mentorship, community and transitions, launching summer 2024. www.carawaterfall.com
