Eliot Cardinaux: If Not for You

If Not for You is Eliot Cardinaux's 9th full-length poetry collection to date. It follows two ongoing serial poems, "Rope of Sand," and "Murmurations," that began in Cardinaux's previous collections, The Ocean From Here to Here, and Wandering Subject, and now span 5 books and counting. Each poem in the collection is dedicated to someone, living or dead, who has had an impact on the poet's life. This collection offers reflection and commentary on the state of our fractured world, while performing various modalities of devotion to poets, musicians, artists, friends, (even a chess grandmaster) and others whose work and presence the poet has encountered, either up close or from afar, and learned from throughout their life. Segments of the aforementioned, interwoven serial poems are broken up by small sequences of miniature poems ("All flaws / revolt / against the uniform. // The killing machine / would be perfect / if not for you."), reflecting, in intimate detail, on intersections of the personal and the political, eros and history, violence, resistance, and love. 

82 pages. Paperback. 6 x 9". 

ISBN: 978-1-971551-05-0

Cover image by Emil Cardinaux (Swiss, 1908).

Eliot Cardinaux is a neuroqueer poet, pianist, composer, translator, and publisher working at the intersection of the lyric and improvised music. The author of 9 full-length poetry collections, including, most recently, A Species of This Invaded World (Bodily Press, 2025), Eliot has also produced and appeared on over a dozen albums of original music, most recently an album of solo piano compositions and spoken word, titled The Furies (Bodily Press, 2026). They hold a bachelor’s degree in contemporary improvisation from the New England Conservatory of Music, and an MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. As the sole and founding editor of The Bodily Press, they have published books and chapbooks by Nathaniel Mackey, Joseph Simas, Martha McCollough, Deja Rene Carr (AKA Mal Devisa), Uche Nduka, Sarah Menefee, Maged Zaher, and numerous others. They live in Northampton, MA with their beloved partner, Shana, where together they aspire to be cats.