“Happy Future,” “Lucky Winner,” “The Spiders of Marzipan,” and “Do Not Go Gently Into That Western Night” by Brad Rose appeared in Issue 43 and can be found here.
We’d love to hear more about this set of poetry.
For thast 10 years, I’ve been writing primarily surreal prose poems, of which “Happy Future,” “Lucky Winner,” and “The Spiders from Marzipanare” examples. Occasionally I wonder whether I should return to writing lyric poems and more naturalistic prose poems, but I’ve realized that a more surrealist/dadist approach allows me the freedom (and license) to explore issues that are primarily concerned with the subjective consciousness of the poems’ speakers. Admittedly, the speakers in my poems are a little disorganized in their thinking, and exhibit the characteristics classically associated with “derailed thinking,” but ironically, these speakers, via their loose associations, twisted idiomatic expressions, contradictory phrasing, and odd malapropisms, are sometimes able to see things, and to say things, more penetratingly than would completely rational speakers.
What was the most difficult part in writing this set?
These poems require a lot of suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader. I think readers are confronted with the question, “What is this speaker saying? What’s the argument? Where’s the poetry in this?” For the author, the challenge is to weave a kind of lose, “second order” logic into the free associations of these madcap speakers. Finding a navigable course between coherence and incoherence is often the most difficult part of writing these pieces.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
I’m currently reading (and savoring) New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, edited by James Thomas and Robert Scotellaro. This collection, published in 2018 by Norton, is luminous. It makes me yearn for the time when I wrote straight-ahead micro fiction and flash fiction. But alas, I fear those days are now hard for me to recreate. I’m also reading Best Micro Fiction (2023) edited by Meg Porkass and Gary Fincke, (Pelekinsis) and Francine Wittes’ book of flash fiction, Radio Water (Roadside Press). I recommend both of these books. I also recently read and enjoyed Martyr by Kaveh Akbar.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
I wish Hemingway were still alive. And Samuel Beckett. I have some questions for both.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
I’ve recently completed a manuscript of prose poems titled, I Wouldn’t Say That, Exactly. I hope to find a publisher for this soon (fingers crossed). I have a book of both prose and lyric poems called WordinEdgeWise, soon coming out on Cervena Barva press. I’ve started another manuscript of prose poems, tentatively titled Outsane Insylum, which, the gods willing, I will finish writing in the next 12-16 months.
Our thanks to Brad for taking the time to answer a few questions and share these poems. Read “Happy Future,” “Lucky Winner,” “The Spiders of Marzipan,” and “Do Not Go Gently Into That Western Night” here.
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Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles, and lives in Boston. He is the author of seven collections of poetry and flash fiction: I Wouldn’t Say That, Exactly,WordInEdgeWise, Lucky Animals, No. Wait. I Can Explain, Pink X-Ray, de/tonations, and Momentary Turbulence. His book of prose poems, Or Words to that Effect, is forthcoming. Eight times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and three times nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology,Brad’spoetry and fiction have appeared in: The American Journal of Poetry, The Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Review, New York Quarterly, Lunch Ticket, Puerto del Sol, Clockhouse, Folio, Best Microfiction (2019), Action Spectacle, Right Hand Pointing,and other journals and anthologies. His website is www.bradrosepoetry.com Selected audio readings: https://bradrosepoetry.com/audio-readings/