“My People,” “A Blast,” and “Suburban Landscape (with Flying Saucer)” by Brad Rose appeared in Issue 27 and can be read here.
We’d love to hear more about this set of poetry.
Each of these is a persona, prose poem. Most of my recent work has been in the prose poem/hybrid genre. These poems all have a central character, with a unified voice. Although these characters are pretty “loosely configured,” despite their somewhat “derailed” monologues, each tells, or attempts to tell, some truth; at least that’s my intention. I’m interested in the ways that language creates characters, as much as characters create, or enact, language. While these pieces may appear wandering and impromptu, they usually are the result of several drafts—they involve a lot weeding and winnowing. Orson Wells said, “The eloquence of the cinema is created on the cutting room floor.”
What was the most difficult part in writing this set?
My poems begin with language—usually one or two disparate lines I’ve written down here and there—and then employ a fairly free associative process. I write to discover what characters have to say and what they observe about the world. While the charters do most of the “heavy lifting,” each of these pieces requires oversight and the expression of authorial intention. The most difficult, and in fact, rewarding, aspect of writing, is living with the uncertainty of where the accreting sentences will take me. Each time I begin writing, I literally have no idea where the poem will go. That’s both daunting and exhilarating. Derek Walcot once observed, “If you know what you are going to write when you’re writing a poem, it’s going to be average.”
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
David Lehman’s anthology Great American Prose Poems is indespensible, but it’s older than a decade. John Ashbery’s most recent books, Quick Question, Commotion of the Birds, and Breezeway are each filled with liberating genious—although I think Ashbery is an acquired taste. I love Heather Crystal’s work: The Trees, The Trees, and What is Amazing are both wonderful. New Micro Fiction: Exceptionally Short Fiction, edited by James Thomas and Robert Scotelaro is filled will breathtaking and enviable examples of micro fiction.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
I don’t know if he would drink with me, and I’m not sure this is going to be well received, but if it were possible to revivify him, I’d love to have a drink—but only one—with Hemingway. His use of plain spoken, relatively unadorned speech has been such a powerful influence on modern literature, and on my own writing. He wasn’t a very good poet, but that said, the unembellished, sparse, indeed, austere sentences of this novels and short stories were hugely important for American literature.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
Two collections of my poems were released this year: de/tonations from Nixes Mate Press and Momentary Turbulence from Cervena Barva, Cervena Barva will publish a book of mostly prose poems WordinEdgewise, in 2021. I’ve just completed a new collection of prose poems called No. Wait. I Can Explain. I don’t yet have a publisher for No. Wait. I Can Explain.
Our thanks to Brad for taking the time to answer a few questions and share his work. Read Rose’s poems “My People,” “A Blast,” and “Suburban Landscape (with Flying Saucer)” here: https://www.sequestrum.org/three-poems-by-brad-rose-2.
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Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles and lives in Boston. He is the author of three collections of poetry and flash fiction, Pink X-Ray (Big Table Publishing, 2015), de/tonations (Nixes Mate Press, 2020), and Momentary Turbulence (Cervena Barva Press, 2020). His fourth collection, WordinEdgeWise, is forthcoming in 2021 from Cervena Barva Press. Five times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and twice nominated for Best of the Net Anthology, his poetry and micro fiction have appeared in, The Los Angeles Times, The American Journal of Poetry, Clockhouse, Hunger Mountain, Sequestrum, Folio, decomP, Lunch Ticket, 45th Parallel, The Baltimore Review, Cultural Weekly, Into the Void, Miracle Monocle, Right Hand Pointing, and other publications. His story, “Desert Motel,” appears in the anthology Best Microfiction, 2019. Brad’s website is: www.bradrosepoetry.com Selected readings can be heard at http://bradrosepoetry.com/audio-readings/ A list of publications is available at: http://bradrosepoetry.com/2019/03/a-list-of-publications/