A Review You can Use: The Poetry of peter bradley

Good morning!

No, that isn't a misprint. peter bradley means to spell his name in lower case letters.  In fact, inspired by e.e. cummings, he spells  pretty much everything in lower case letters.  Today's author is part of that new breed of author...the kind who gets a following and then publishes a book.  While he might rail against the e-reader format, peter bradley is part of the digital movement.

But his online publishing politics aside, peter bradley is a poet, and he's a voice people should maybe hearing.  He has two collections of poetry available right now "a collection of writing from under my sheets (wish they were yours)" and "GRAVITY".  His poetry touches on topics the twenty-somethings of today, indeed the twenty-somethings forever, talk about:  Sex, breakups, long distance relationships, and alcohol.
He uses raw language...so beware...this is not a Dr. Seuss book by any stretch.  

Written in that rare space of time between the junior year of high school and his twentieth birthday, peter bradley reveals heartbreak, angst, and a longing for either a return to childhood or a fast forward into middle age, because 'right now' is too much to look at.

Publishing the two books quickly, there isn't a lot of time between them, and yet there's a definite shift, a darkening, between the first and second collections.  Questions about love, betrayal, and the emergence into a self reliant adulthood are raised in short, clipped verses and long, wandering soliloquies.  Like many of his generation, peter bradley does his best to wander away from the traditional rules of poetry, but in doing so writes haunting, approachable words that many could identify with and few would struggle to understand.  Where was this guy when I was being forced to dissect great poetry for one blah English class or another?

bradley speaks with the voice of his generation, which is to say, while he's looking for help, he's not asking anyone for it and he wouldn't thank you if you offered.  He lives in a world the generations before created and he's trying to make the best of it.

It's hard for me to give this a star rating for a couple reasons.  1)  I don't read enough poetry to compare these books to anything else.  2) Rating poetry on a hard 1-5 scale sort of defeats the whole idea of poetry, right?  BUT, if you love poetry, or if you are looking for a fresh new voice, this is a great place to start.  His books are available for Kindle and in print by clicking here.