10th Annual Juried Reading: Jason Bredle

10th Annual Juried Reading Finalist

Jason Bredle -- Second Place

In "The Crossfire, the breathtaking Explosions, O" Jason Bredle has accomplished the miraculous: a synthesis of chaos and order into something resembling a new poetics of "formal anarchy." Reminiscent of Dean Young and James Tate, his verbal comedy weaves together critical inquiry and surreal hilarity without ever surrendering its epistemological seriousness. Not only is Jason Bredle a worthy recipient of second-place in the Poetry Center awards, but I would cast my vote for him as captain of the Awesome University poetry team. "Go Unicorns!"
-- Campbell McGrath

Jason Bredle received his MFA from the University of Michigan, where he was the recipient of three Hopwood Awards. Most recently, his poems have appeared in Salt Hill and his music reviews in Resonance. His manuscript, Standing in Line for the Beast, has lost nearly every first book contest held in the past four years.

The Crossfire, the Breathtaking Explosions, O

When I answer the telephone I am a baby
kangaroo, my ears have detached
from my head. The dean of Awesome University

describes to me the low-sunned desolation
of his birthday in Sacramento before placing
an irksome fraternity on double secret

probation. In class we examine the James Wright
poem In Memory of the Horse David..., a work
which so violently permeates

such unknowable love, sadness,
and hatred that one cannot ignore its sheer
eroticism, the sheer hardness of man,

boot, and horsewhip, of darkness, of history
and eternity encapsulated in a single bruise.
I decide I can eat a banana if a banana

is a chocolate banana but that I cannot eat
a plain banana. In a chilling interpretation of the poem,
the captain of Awesome University's sports

team plays the role of horse and the captain
of Awesome University's cheerleading
squadron plays the role of speaker. The onslaught

is unleashed, go Unicorns! The hapless wallaby
José performs a tail sit, sucks
his toes. The captains are immediately placed

on double secret probation, the mystery
of pantomime reveals itself outside
the office of the bursar. When the speaker of James

Wright's poem arrives at the stable, drunk,
full of fatherly anger, one cannot
ignore the eruption of hysteria. Critics might

say that's what you get when you leave your poems
in a horse's mouth. Not long ago
I was merely a jelly bean, and now, now

I am discovering my legs in a fox-proof
enclosure. When I answer the telephone,
a woman, crying, tells me that I am an angel.

But inside, I contend, I am filled with organs
and muscles and oceans of light. I drop out
of Awesome University's French program

when, one day, I find myself,
due to the particularities of the situation,
recommending a John Singleton film,

and decide that if the parameters of the French
language require me, out of necessity,
to recommend a John Singleton film,

I will enroll in Awesome University's renowned
German program. Die Liebe ist
ein schwarzer Fluß. I believe it was Awesome

University's honorary doctoral recipient
James Lipton who said, just before
being placed on double secret probation,

when I was three, I was writing epic
poetry, horrible, terrible stuff. So I wanted
to be a writer. But then my father, who was a famous

eccentric, left us, and I decided to be
a lawyer, go Unicorns! In the James Wright
poem, a monarch butterfly lands upon

the horse's head, forcing the speaker to momentarily
relinquish his maniacal blows.
The captain of the intelligentsia team claims

that this scene evokes Hawthorne's
The Artist of the Beautiful. In a letter to his mother,
Hawthorne writes But authors are always poor

devils, and therefore Satan may take them;
nonetheless, I shall enroll in Awesome University's
English literature program and myself become,

as the saying goes, a Unicorn. He would soon attain
the status of legend after riding his motorcycle
naked through a sorority house. A crazy old

man interrupts the Awesome University
Chamber Orchestra's rendition of Gilbert
and Sullivan's Patience, causing a vocalist to forget

all of his lines. Welp, this is what you get
when you shave with a survival knife, remarks
an onlooker. In the James Wright poem,

the speaker, exhausted and blood covered, throws
a flaming hoof and a bottle of gasoline
into a pyre, mounts a head above his mantle.

A television tumbles into a bathtub, electrocuting
his son, go Unicorns! When I meet
the dean of Awesome University for lunch

at the juice bar, I mistakenly believe James
Wright is still alive, judging beauty
contests alongside the also dead

George Plimpton somewhere in the beltway.
Are they dead, or is it that you refuse to believe
in the eternal life of a Unicorn? questions

the dean. When I answer the telephone, I am
dying inside. A universe under the influence
of the cosmological constant continues to accelerate.

Within a few years, galaxies will move away
faster than the speed of light, disappearing
forever from the sky. With half an hour

remaining on the cosmic clock, we will explode.
Love is a black river. I am released
into the darkness, into a night owned by foxes.