#jason bredle

[allyourprettywords]

“Personal,” J. P. Dancing Bear

for Jason Bredle

O Cello Head, sing me a song of Yo-Yo Ma and the tragedy of papier-mâché. Every               Sunday, Sunday, Sunday news of the Auto-Casa in E-flat major. God came to you in a classified ad. God says, must love sunrises, must love ohio tire fires, must love 50’s auto fins. God is a hopeful romantic               in a valentine red Cadillac with a cardiac condition for smoke and fire balls. You have seen god on the interstate. Hair almost medusan with the top down. He hits the horn every time he sees the bumper sticker “honk if you love god”—God loves god—               you know it’s true. All the dogs are barking, you know God loves Dog too. O Cello Head, you are               finding poems in the classifieds.

[numinousnic]

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NATIONAL POETRY MONTH 2021 April 10 | “Girls, Look Out For Todd Bernstein”

Because after sitting out for a spell he’s back with a degree in accounting and a high paying position in one of the leading pharma- ceutical corporations in the country and aspirations of owning that exotic yellow sports car, license plate EVIL. And like Dennis Meng at Sycamore Chevrolet stakes his reputation on his fully reconditioned used cars, I stake my reputation on telling you Todd Bernstein means business this time, girls. No more of this being passed over for abusive alcoholic football stars. He’s got a velour shirt now. No more of your excuses—if he wants you, you’re there. None of this I’m washing my hair Friday night nonsense—come on, you think Todd Bernstein’s going to fall for that? He knows you’re not studying, not busy working on some local political campaign, not having the guy who played Cockroach on The Cosby Show over for dinner, not writing any great American novel. He’s seen your stuff for God’s sake, and it’s simply nothing more than mediocre, long prose poems with titles like “The Falling” and “Crucible” and “Waking to Death” that force impossible metaphors, despairing about love and womanhood and how bad your life is even though you grew up happily in suburban America, or at least as happily as anyone can grow up in suburban America, which normally, you know, consists of the appearance of happiness while your dad is doing three secretaries on the side and your mom pretends not to know and brags to the entire town about how you’re an actor about to star in a sitcom about the mis- adventures of a cable TV repairperson who, while out on a routine installation one day, accidentally electrically blasts herself into the living room of a family of barbarian warlords on a planet near Alpha Centauri who force her into slavery before sending her on a pillage mission to a planet of Cloxnors who capture her and place her in a torture institution where she meets a vulnerable Meeb whom she convinces, because of her cable TV repairperson skills, to let her become nanny to its impressionable Meeblets just before it’s about to rip off her limbs with its ferocious abnons and devour her. The results, according to your mom, are hilarious, but come on, you and I both know the story is just so predictable. And Todd knows damn well your writing doesn’t pull off any metaphors for the happiness that was taken from you by some dude who played the guitar and called himself a musician when all he could really do was play a couple of chords and sing about true love and alligators and how the alligator represents true love which somehow explains why somebody cut open an alligator one time in Florida to find a golfer. There’s just no fooling Todd. Sure he’ll act like he’s interested, that’s Todd Bernstein, and he’ll make remote claims that he too has written or been artistic at some point in his life, but Todd Bernstein knows all you girls really want is a piece of good old Todd Bernstein. No longer will any strange auras enter the bedroom during sex and keep him from maintaining an erection, no longer will any women walk out on him repulsed. If anybody’s walking out after sex, it’ll be Todd Bernstein, I can assure you. He won’t be humiliating himself by falling down a flight of stairs in front of a group of Japanese tourists anymore, but rather coaxing entire masses of women into his bed- room. Because that’s Todd Bernstein. He’s on the move. And he wants you to know, girls, that he’s well aware you certainly can’t learn Korean sitting around here which is why he’s out there right now, preparing for the slew of women just beyond his sexual horizon, spray-painting GIRLS, LOOK OUT FOR TODD BERNSTEIN on the side of a Village Pantry.

Jason Bredle

[killjoykaty-blog1]

I don’t love the way the “you” is functioning in this collection of poems. It feels so overt. Or rather, it feels unnecessary in a lot of the poems, and a little condescending. This stuck out the most to me in the poem “Frida Kahlo.” The narrator is assuming the reader’s desires and then says he will subvert them, but I don’t get why he needed to say that. I didn’t have a lot of expectations for the poem, other than a Frida Kahlo moment, but by telling me he would subvert my expectations the poem lost me. Because the poem didn’t really go any place that interesting, excepting the Diego Rivera shirt..,because everyone should have one of those. 

My favorite poem in the book was “Summer” this poem felt the most natural pacing wise, as well as with the use of “you.” Rather than a direct and assuming address to the reader the “you” in this poem becomes a character of the poem, the main character. To me this usage felt more natural than other moments it is used in the text, and it allowed me to consider the “you” and ruminate on this character, and how I identified with the “you” here. 

[thenotesinmargins-blog]

It’s like when you leave/ your mother and everything’s fine, but you forget,/ say, a glass fish, return home/ and find her there, in the breakfast nook,/ crying.

Page 22; Jason Bredle; Standing in Line for the Beast

[thenotesinmargins-blog]

Repetition in “Standing in Line for the Beast”

Page 19; Jason Bredle; Standing in Line for the Beast

At first, beginning Bredle’s book of poetry late at night, when everyone else had already left our office building, I couldn’t stand the repetition. Bredle latches on to a word or phrase and won’t let go of it for a whole poem: 

“Subtitled How do people deal with things, as in shopping at Meijer? [...] Subtitled Trying to deal with it all, that is, subtitled You just want to eat your elbow while standing in the checkout for over half an hour with your extension cord and the Christmas music and the one hundred top entertainers of all time” (19). 

But as I read on, grasping at any kind of meaning I could find, I found the repetition of phrase, of character, and of image to be rather revealing. I became more emotionally invested in Bredle’s poetry the more threads began to show up again: tornados, Mexico, Michigan, Nick, Sarah. As a guiding theme of love lost began to reappear with more frequency (or perhaps, as I noticed it with more frequency), I stopped searching for meaning in every line and the feeling of information overload began to taper off. I experienced the hollowness the narrator did. I got the sense that repeated lines and images and locations were playing on repeat in the narrator’s mind; he couldn’t help but almost-obsessively return to the last moment he held the women he loved.

[espie-veritas]

"Birthday Party"- Jason Bredle

When I walk into a room the first thing I do is size 

everyone up fiscally. You people have scored very 

low. Where are the gifts? Have you heard the latest 

about politics and religion? Guess what I did last 

night. I dipped myself in chum and surfed off of 

Shark Bay Beach. It’s like riding a sword through 

a tiger storm, my friends. You bet I want to do it 

again! And yet part of me feels empty, or like my head 

is full of monsters. Oh you people, I forgive 

you. In my memory, the cherry blossoms are always 

in bloom. You know how it is. You go to a birthday party 

for a guy named Kyle. When you get there 

nobody knows who Kyle is. You realize Kyle isn’t a 

person, but something inside you. He’s what makes

you do the things that make you hate yourself. His 

favorite cake is red velvet.

[bibliomancyoracle]

It can be hard to look at all beings 

with compassion when you take into 

account the huge amount 

of a-holes there are.

*

from "Chocolate Heaven" by Jason Bredle

[magichelicopter]

Magic Helicopter Author Interview: Jason Bredle

The next interview comes from Jason Bredle, author of the poetry collection Smiles of the Unstoppable. See what Jason has to say about that book, his new collection, and Hoosier hoops.

1. You published Smiles of the Unstoppable, a book I reviewed at Vouched Books before I was a part of this MHP team, in early 2011. These poems have been praised for their hilarious and wide-open emotional nature. How do you view those poems now?

Pretty much the same as I did when they were published. There are some weak poems, but a solid foundation of poems I like a lot - Twilight Box, Earth Night, Red Soda, Candy Fountain, Night of the Jaguar, Elegy for Roger Prynne, Breadfruit, Orange Crush, Clouds and Carousel. It's the first book I published where I wasn't embarrassed by every poem once it was out, so I feel good about that.

2. Since this book, you've published another full-length collection, Carnival (University of Akron Press, 2012). How does this new collection stand next to Smiles of the Unstoppable? What should readers expect from the new book?

Well it's a series of intertwining prose poems with a few overarching narratives throughout. I think each poem works as a singular thing, but hopefully they're more enjoyable when taken as a whole (I think they are, anyway). Rather than writing about my own life like much of Smiles of the Unstoppable, Pain Fantasy or Standing in Line for the Beast, I tried to capture the feelings of my life in a more fictional realm. It still retains an absurd voice and sense of humor, but in some ways, it's more inward focused and personal than anything I'd written before. In some ways it's not, though. The whole thing only takes sixty minutes to read, and you can buy an electronic version to read on your phone.

3. You're a fellow Hoosier, both in birth and schooling, having been born in Indianapolis and completing your undergrad career at Indiana University. Are you a hoops fan? While working on these questions, I've got the NBA Draft in the background. At #2, Victor Oladipo went to Orlando. At #4, Cody Zeller went to Charlotte. What's your take on thist? Highest two Hoosiers have ever went! Of course I'm a fan, and the Hoosiers have always been my team. I expected Zeller to go pretty early, even though after on his sophomore season I think he deserves to play in the Philippines. Oladipo going second, though - that was awesome. He's probably my favorite IU player of all time. He's such a hard-working, amazing talent. As I answer this question, Brad Stevens is the new coach of the Celtics. That was surprising. 

4. That Brad Stevens was definitely a BIG move. He gave up a lot of comfort--the unconditional Butler love, a contract through 2022, a program/community/team that's all all his. Of course, you can't blame him for taking the big money (though idk if that was it) and stepping up to the big leagues. 

Also, did you know his wife is also his agent? 

But the real question: among all these shakeups in Hoosier hoops land--Stevens' exit, Hoosiers to the lottery, Pacers' likely moving Granger--what moves, switches, and possibilities in the hoops world (Hoosier-related or not) are you most stoked to see shake out next year?

I didn't know his wife was his agent. I didn't know about Granger, either - are they trading him? I wish he could stay, but I guess they don't really need him. I think they'd probably be NBA champions if they didn't have to play the Heat. They were the champs of my 2K13 league anyway. I've been most surprised by all the Celtics' recent moves. Hiring Stevens, trading away Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett for Kris Humphries? That seemed weird.

5. I agree with you about Oladipo being awesome. His potential seems very very promising. What would your all-time Hoosier team look like? Not just skill but your favorites. Would Knight be coach?

Knight wouldn't coach. I never particularly cottoned to his huge baby-like tantrums during games and press conferences as a motivator. I'd wanted Tom Crean to fail so they could hire Stevens, but I suppose I should let that go at this point. I'd probably go with Steve Alford, Keith Smart, Calbert Cheaney, AJ Guyton, Alan Henderson, maybe Kirk Haston, and Oladipo, maybe Christian Watford. Definitely when this past year's team was playing well, I can't think of a more fun team to watch. Since I didn't see games before the mid-80's, this dream team list kind of suxxx dixxx, though.

6. What are you working on now? What are you reading?

I've finished George Saunders' new book and the newer JM Coetzee memoir. Right now I'm reading Hicok's Elegy Owed, which I'm reviewing for Coldfront. I'm finishing a manuscript of poems, writing some prose, and working on being an overall awesome dude.