"A poem is like a door
we've never passed through."
— Homer Aridjis

 

Photo by Jana Brubaker

John Bradley was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts; Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska; Massapequa and Lynbrook, New York; and Wayzata, Minnesota. His first book, Love-in-Idleness: The Poetry of Roberto Zingarello, won the Washington Prize, in 1989, and a second edition, expanded and revised, was published by Word Works in 2015.  He is fond of composing aphorisms, some of which appear in the anthologies Short Flights and Short Circuits.  He’s also an avid collagist, something that allows him to escape the world of language.  He’s been a reviewer of poetry books for Rain Taxi for many years.  The recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Pushcart Prize, and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, he’s currently a poetry editor for Cider Press Review.  He lives in DeKalb, Illinois, with his wife, Jana, and their cats, Kiki and Zuzu.   

Books by John Bradley

 

— POETRY —

As Blood Is the Fruit of the Heart (Dos Madres Press, forthcoming)

Dear Morpheus, The Glue That Is You (Dos Madres Press, 2023)

Hotel Montparnasse: Letters to César Vallejo (Dos Madres Press, 2021)

Everything in Motion, Everything at Rest (Dos Madres Press, 2020)

Spontaneous Mummification (SurVision Books, 2020)

Agitprop (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019)

Erotica Atomica (WordTech Editions, 2017)

And Thereby Everything (Longhouse Publishers, 2015)

Love-In-Idleness: The Poetry of Roberto Zingarello (Word Works, 2015)

One Day You a Mountain Shall Be: The Lost Poetry of Cheng Hui (Finishing Line Press, 2014)

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2010)

Terrestrial Music (Curbstone Press, 2006)

Add Musk Here (Pavement Saw Press, 2002)

To Dance with Uranium (Lake Effect Press, 1995)

The New Wine Dreaming in the Vat (Mesilla Press, 1993)

From the Faraway Nearby (The And Review, 1992)

Love-In-Idleness: The Poetry of Roberto Zingarello (Word Works, 1989)

All for Blanca: The Selected Poetry of Roberto Zingarello (Tilton House, 1988)

A-E-I-O-U (Duluth Art Institute, 1981)

— PROSE —

Trancelumination (Lowbrow Press, 2011)

War on Words (BlazeVOX Books, 2006)

— ANTHOLOGIES —

And Blue Will Rise Over Yellow: An International Poetry Anthology for Ukraine (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2023)

Eating the Pure Light: Homage to Thomas McGrath (Backwaters Press, 2009)

Learning to Glow: A Nuclear Reader (University of Arizona Press, 2000)

Atomic Ghost: Poets Respond to the Nuclear Age (Coffee House Press, 1995)