You Don't Know What You Don't Know

by John Bradley

Poetry. Winner of the 2009 Cleveland State University Poetry Center Open Competition. A collection of prose poems that might be described as Franz Kafka and Frida Kahlo going out for a date at Coney Island. The book reflects what happens when you drop an American history textbook, an issue of People, and a short history of dreams into a blender.

Genres: Poetry

75 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2010

Reviews

[Barrie Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a number of very good poems in this book. And I trust in Bradley’s dedication to his poems. He has a strong voice and I am inspired by his project. To neither forget Bo Diddley and Sam Cooke while giving John Negroponte the chance, if only for a moment, of being elevated to the importance of Diddley and Cooke, is a noble thing.

I am also spoiled by the prose poems of Russel Edson and James Tate. The moments of magic that I want from a prose poem were less frequent than I had wished for.

[Derek Wolfgram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: John Bradley is a friend of mine.

John Bradley writes exquisite prose poems that are both deeply funny and deeply deep. He combines an incredible command of the language with a razor wit and a gift for mashing up American history with contemporary pop culture to create absurd parables and alternate perspectives on historical events. I'm tempted to try to describe John's poems as Person X meets Person Y meets Person Z, but I know John could do it far better... my best comparison is Howard Zinn and Franz Kafka listening to Beck together while joining Major Kong on his atom bomb ride in Dr. Strangelove. You Don't Know What You Don't Know is the 2009 winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center open competition.

Finding one brief quotation to illustrate John's poetry is challenging, but here are the first few lines of the poem Memo to Ariadne: "I'm going to need a change of address, a change of clothes, a motion that's a cross between a shamble, a dodge, and a faint. I'm going to need spelunker bread, avuncular bread, homuncular bread, dusted with arsenic. I'll need nude photographs of Cindy Crawford in the arms of James Dean in the arms of Walt Whitman. I'm going to need a recipe for lightning: how much insomnia, how much caffeine, how much flea powder. I know I'm going to need the phone number of someone with Salt somewhere in their last name."

[Robert Vaughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is unique, fresh, experimental and strange in all the most extra-ordinary ways. I read this in one sitting, could not put it down. Now I will revisit this book again and again for different interpretations on the surreal and complex, yet simply wonderful short fictions.

[Aaron Belz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't get enough of Bradley's poetry. It's like Edson meets Baudelaire, they mug DiCaprio, steal his wallet, and go for a late bite at the Rainbow Room.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing, as are all of John Bradley's book. The prose poems here continue to establish Bradley as one of the form's most exciting practitioners.