trated poetry collection The Bones of
Us, and then just a year later in
,
releases prose poem chapbook It Is A
Wild Swing Of A Knife.
This year his first novel drops. I ask
him about it.
LiteratureJ. Bradley
by Mary McGinn
I meet with Jesse Bradley at College
Park’s Infusion Tea. The teahouse
smells of bright herbs and cake.
There are bookshelves to peruse and
novelty trinkets galore. Meeting here
was a good choice. Jesse has an advanced copy of his new novel The Adventures of Jesus Christ, Boy Detective in
his hands and a new pair of glasses
on his face.
Jesse is one of the founders of Orlando’s literary scene as we know it.
I met him a little over a year ago at
There Will Be Verse, a periodic poetry slam he runs. I ask him to tell me
about the early days, and he says I’m
asking him to dig up ancient history.
“I want to say it was the early
’s
when I discovered poetry slam
through the documentary Slam Nation,” he says.
At that time in Orlando history nearly every open mic was devoted to just
music. So in
, he starts a poetry
slam at UCF through the English
Honor’s Society ΣΣΔ. They jump to
downtown Orlando for a year or two,
then settle into Stardust Video & Coffee (back when it was a video rental
place) for years.
During this time Stardust changes
their business model and gets their
liquor license. During this same time
Orlando’s Art Scene
Jesse competes in five National Poetry Slams and gets poems published in
various literary magazines.
In
he gets pieces accepted in to
PANK, and not too long after he becomes their Interview Editor. At this
point, he’s been writing poetry exclusively for over a decade.
“My world view of literature got bigger because I worked for PANK. I
read every piece that was published
that month, because I would write
custom interview questions for every
single writer.”
This inspired Jesse