Overview

What is a spell?In As Blood Is the Fruit of the Heart: A Book of Spells, this question conjures many answers. Ultimately it's this: A spell is that most ancient tool of poets and storytellers using crafted language powered by breath and clear focus, sent forth as a messenger into the cosmos. As Mary Ruefle has said, ""The origins of poetry are clearly rooted in obscurity, in secretiveness, in incantation, in spells that must at once invoke and protect, tell the secret and keep it."" Some of the poems in this book foretell, some protect; some condemn, some praise.Always they spring from this central belief: there is no power like the power of the word. Bradley's spells amuse and admonish us in quirky and surprising ways. His long lines wind thru strange spaces and take us along for the ride. Some spells are dark and some quite funny, taken all together they are a view into the surreal world of incantation, long the province of poets.

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9781962847186

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Reviews

John Bradley's book of spells begins not as a series of incantations, but of encryptions and admonitions: don't touch this, watch out for that. Try not to fall victim to podcasts from the asteroid belt. Don't be deceived by the voices of dream animals or the wail of mechanical sirens. Take care, ""because a spell can't be tricked, rubbed, / licked, robbed, kissed, caged, swallowed"" without considerable risk. There is an otherworldly music to this uncanny collection. Poems filled with bits of bone, chemicals, threats, and parts of speech give way to spells of wistful tenderness and forgiveness. But who's actually casting these spells anyway, whether they're for us, or upon us? ... Look, open any page in this book, and I promise you'll stumble on at least one line that will make you laugh or shiver or trip you out. Or your money back. -Joseph Gastiger, author of After Forever Changes Anyone familiar with John Bradley's earlier book Hotel Montparnasse: Letters to César Vallejo will not be surprised to learn the spirit of César Vallejo has cast a spell on Bradley, empowering him to produce one of the most magical, insightful books of the 21st century, As Blood Is the Fruit of the Heart: A Book of Spells. This is not a self-help book, though its poems offer some worthwhile instruction. ""How to Have Sex in a Canoe,"" ""How to Tell Someone They're Slightly Fascistic,"" and ""How to Live Forever"" are a few examples. Readers also witness ""sleepers inhaling sleep"" and learn ""Dirt teaches us how our bodies / pass through thousands of bodies."" John Bradley's book masterfully presents the incongruities emanating from the extraordinary as well as the ordinary, leading the reader on a journey into a new personal consciousness, built from humanity's ever-growing collective unconsciousness. -Ken Letko, author of Chopping Wood in the Moonlight

Author Information

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. Besides writing poetry, he is also fond of composing aphorisms, some of which appear in the anthologies Short Flights and Short Circuits. 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. Learn more at: johnbradleypoetry.com.

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