Poetry
Brad’s poems are predominately character-driven and surreal, yet because of their use of everyday, colloquial language, are also accessible and lucid. Through a combination of humor, perplexity, silliness, and gravitas, each poem’s speaker reveals a wild associational logic and astonishing jolts of insight. They compel the reader to ask not, “What does this poem mean?” but rather, “Who is this speaker/narrator?” and “What can I learn from the speaker’s implicit struggles, aspirations, defeats, and quirky observations?” Many of his poems feature speakers who operate at the outer edge of rationality and clear thinking, but who haven’t quite stepped over that edge. Not quite.
Fiction
Brad’s focus on micro/flash fiction enables him to explore the multiple dimensions of human experience in extremely brief narrative formats. Brad is the author of more that 500 flash/micro fiction stories and has been nominated eight times for a Pushcart Prize and three times nominated for Best of the Net. Titles include: “Me and Buddy at the Pink Elephant,” “Naked to the Waist,” “A Stabbing,” and “They’re Reading My Mind Again.” His one-paragraph story “Desert Motel” is in the Best Microfiction, 2019.
Books
Brad Rose is the author of seven collections of poetry and flash fiction: I Wouldn’t Say That, Exactly, WordInEdgeWise, Lucky Animals, Pink X-Ray, de/tonations, Momentary Turbulence, and No. Wait. I Can Explain. Eight times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and three times nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology, Brad’s poetry and fiction have appeared in, The Los Angeles Times, The American Journal of Poetry, Folio, decomP, Lunch Ticket, The Baltimore Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, Sequestrum, and 150 other publications. His story “Desert Motel,” appears in Best Microfiction, 2019.
Brad is the author of five chapbooks: Democracy of Secrets, Dancing School Nerves, An Evil Twin is Always in Good Company, Coyotes Circle the Party Store Collateral, Funny You Should Ask, and Away with Words.