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What follows is an interview with Brian Bradley, taken over the phone in January of 1998, for publication at Sick Puppy Press. I conducted the interview, and the initial questions were written by Paul Sibley.

SPP: B. M. Bradley is the mind behind the ever-evolving poetry and creativity web site Wanton. I have viewed the site and Bradley's work for the last couple of months. I am still shocked and amazed at the degree of impact his original work has on me. Bradley is known for writing what we sometimes call "Vulgar Poetry;" his use of violence, sex, and a sharp sense of language are challenging to the traditional poet image, and I think works to prove to people that explicit writing isn't done just to shock. Wanton is an interesting site, with it's own domain name --a rarity in the poetry web site scene-- and an author whose writing is excellent. It's hard to figure out what to talk about more, the man or his creative output. In this interview, though, we hoped to see more of B. M. Bradley, the man, who mixes his talent for writing very well with a keen sense of web design.

B. M., when did you start writing poetry?

BM: I started writing in 1995. I wanted to teach myself how to write, and I figured I would start with poetry. I never went to school. I didn't have the physical skill of typing down. I also hadn't mastered the physical skill of working a pen, so I started writing poetry to teach myself. I was going to get a word processor to learn to type, and my brother gave me a computer. So that's how I got started.

SPP: Do you feel like that worked?

BM: Well, sort of. Poetry has helped me learn to spell.

SPP: So, when you say you never went to school, I guess you mean you didn't finish grammar school?

BM: Oh, no, I have a high school diploma. But when I was in school, they didn't really bother you much. Plus, I was on drugs most of the time in high school. And I was in juvenile hall for most of my senior year.

SPP: What inspired you to write poetry then, and what inspires you now?

BM: Well, before I was a poet, I was a musician for seventeen or eighteen years. Then, I was always writing songs. I switched to poetry because I felt like it was a freer art form; that I could do more with it. It was six to eight months, though, before I could teach myself to stop rhyming.

My poetry's evolved a lot since then. It's taken me a while to be more honest with my self, with my voice. To be more sincere, and drop some of the pretense. It's taken time for me to learn to step out of the way of what I am writing, and just let my voice say what it wants to say.

SPP: Do you read other poets?

BM: Yes. Or rather, at times I do. Lately I haven't. I haven't written anything either, lately. Nothing in about a month, or a month and a half or so. I like Renay [her works are displayed at Monkeychow]. I like her stuff a whole lot. It's very honest, very true. I like Nelson, but his site is down. I like Michael McNeilley [displayed here and elsewhere]. I like Ben Ohmart [displayed here and elsewhere]. Ben's stuff is very warm. Emotionally, I mean. It makes me feel very warm.

I read a lot of poetry, but I don't really understand much of it. A lot of it I don't get at all. 'University poetry,' I call that stuff. Then there's the stuff --I thought only kids wrote it but recently I've discovered that people in like their forties are cranking it out-- that I call pining poetry. Poetry about how so-and-so left me and now my life is over. I hate that. I always assumed it was kids, but no.

SPP: What about poetry books, from standard publication houses, or the dead famous poets?

BM: I don't read poetry books at all. I don't think I've ever read one. No, I take that back, I really like the poetry in the Bible. I especially like Job and Song of Songs. I don't like the poetry in the New Testament as much, I don't find the language quite as beautiful, but there's good stuff there, too.

I just read it as a casual reader. I'm not a Christian, but I figured, any book that has been that popular for that long has to have just fucking incredibly beautiful language, and I wasn't disappointed.

SPP: Poets seem notorious for either adoring and emulating their favorite writers, or rarely reading the works of others, too afraid of over-influence in their own work. Are you a part of either camp?

BM: The web poets that I read -- I read them because I like the way their mind works. I feel like I'm reading a really good piece when I can understand the thought process behind it, when I can get a glimpse past what they're saying, or how their saying, to how their thinking arrived at what they're now trying to say. Flowery lines like 'My tormented soul weeping through the night' does not reveal the poet's thought process. I don't get anything out of it. I like to see new thought processes, because then I feel like I'm expanding my horizons, I'm really thinking something new. And maybe I can integrate what they're thinking into my own thought processes. But there's never a risk that I'll duplicate their work, because I'll never think in exactly the same way.

SPP: Do you ever find that you become formulaic in your writing, copying a popular format you have developed in a previous piece?

BM: I cover the same subject matter in a lot of pieces. That's just because there are certain regular themes that my life seems to follow, things that as a human being, happen to me over and over again. But I don't feel I've ever cranked out formula writing, because I'm always trying to be more honest, to be truer to my voice, and let it do the writing.

Or maybe that's something that you can tell me. If I start to sound formulaic, I want someone to tell me about it.

There's a part of me that, I don't know, that wants to really touch people. Sometimes I'll be reading someone else's poetry and I'll have an experience where things are just reaching out and grabbing me, and I like that idea, and I want to be able to do the same thing to people. I guess I like the idea of being able to effect people.

SPP: Why the web site route instead of traditional self-publishing?

BM: I don't want to publish a book by myself. I don't really know why. The concept has just never held appeal for me. I don't want to be selling my poetry book at the coffeehouses like a crack dealer, or having to plead with people, "Please, please, buy my book." I don't want to have to promote myself in that fashion. If someone else thinks that my work is worthy of publication, they'll take interest and publish me.

Plus, I'm very reclusive. I don't go out much, except to work, and recovery meetings. I don't enjoy reading at coffee shops. I don't enjoy being a performer.

SPP: Have you ever held a public reading?

BM: Yes, and I've had a couple of real disasters. I wrote a piece [Would You], and I was told never to read it aloud. So what was the first thing I did? I rushed off to a coffee shop and read it aloud. It was terrible. It made people very upset.

SPP: Why?

BM: You know, I really don't do bad things any more, but shitty stuff happens a lot, and sometimes I'm around when it happens. So then I go out and write about it.

Some of my poetry is very... hard. Hard and abusive. And this piece was very hard. The guy sitting next to me? When I read this piece, he made a noise like I had punched him in the gut.

I lost a friend over it. Not a very close friend, but a girl that I had been running around with. After that piece, she didn't want to be around me anymore.

SPP: What are your thoughts on free press and self-published works?

BM: I think free press is fine. There's a lot of stuff that I see people say that I wish they wouldn't, though. I don't like it when I see people broadcasting 'hey' because they don't have a story, you know? Just people shouting, 'hey, look at me,' on the news and TV with nothing to say. But oh well, it's a free country. But I'm glad people are putting out free press books. I have no intention of selling Highland Avenue [Bradley's novel, now available from Electron Press] that way.

SPP: Your most recent revision of the Wanton interface seems much more minimalist and intimate. Other versions of your interface seemed rougher, almost angry and aggressive. At what point do you decide to go to all of the trouble necessary to change the overall look of the site. And is this a "softer, gentler" you we're seeing or just another perspective on your work and web design?

BM: As I learn more about web-building, when I reach a point when I want to learn something new, the first thing I do is go to rebuild my site. Every time I study a new technique that looks cool to me, I want to use it and learn it fully, so I tear my site down and rebuild it. Right now, I'm learning to use PhotoShop, and create digital images that will look good on the site. The images you see up now were the first ones that I learned to create. I didn't make them to make the site seem softer. Although someone has told me that he likes the contrast of the harsh poetry on the soft pastel graphics.

This time, I just wanted to scale the site really far down. I pulled all the Java off my site, I got sick of the load time. Then I thought about using Script, but I got sick of trying to figure out which ones would work with IE, and which ones would work with Navigator, and I just figured until those two products got together, why should I bother? Then I had the Java and non-Java versions up, and I just said, fuck this, got tired of it. There's a level of confidence, too, that comes when you say, "It's not about the website anymore, it's just about the content. I don't need all the pretty moving icons and cool technology stuff."

I used to have my entire novel up there, but now there's just the Highland Avenue short story. Now, I'm going to keep from seven to ten poems up, and change them every week.

I have 100 pieces ready to publish together in a volume, that I'm calling Cord. I'm going to put photography with it and try to get it published as a coffee table book. I tried to take some photographs myself, but I don't have a really good camera, and things just didn't come out right. So I have some photographer friends, and I've been meaning to talk to them about building photography for the book, but it's moving slow. Oh well, though. Things will happen when it's time.

SPP: What do you think about the coffee house spoken word scene that has picked up momentum in today's poetry subculture? We know you don't read, do you attend readings?

BM: I occasionally attend poetry readings. I've heard some really good shit at them. I've heard a lot of really weird shit at them. I've also seen a lot of actors, you know, people who are just reading to get up on stage. But I'm not keen on that one speech pattern everyone seems to fall into.

SPP: What do you mean?

BM: Well, maybe it's just a California thing, you know, but everyone at the spoken word houses falls into a certain rhyme and rhythm, a certain way of spacing their words. I'm glad that the coffee house scene exists, that people have opportunity to be part of such a thing.

But out here, there's this one little clique that goes to all the readings, and they like, really admire each other's work, in a big way. I'm not sure I get that mentality. I'm told that they all go to two or three writer's workshops together, though. No fucking way am I ever going to something like that with those guys.

Actually, there are two or three really distinct poetry crowds in LA., and I've just never wanted to be a part of them. But I've heard some really good stuff at the readings. I got to hear Gerald Locklin read. That was incredible. Really gut-level honest. I like that. Then I've heard stuff, good or bad, that I just didn't believe. I just didn't feel like the person really felt that way. Then there's the 'cheap shot' poetry -- you know, stuff like, "I'm a nigger and I hate everybody," or "I'm just a faggot and you owe me a living," or "I'm an angry woman and I hate men."

SPP: In the selection of work you currently have on Wanton you deal with a number of volatile issues--

BM: No shit? [laughter]

SPP: You don't like my questions, man?

BM: Oh, it's a wonderful question. It's just that I had no idea that I was being volatile.

SPP: Come on, man, I'm trying to conduct an interview here.

BM: Please, please, go ahead.

SPP: In the selection of work you currently have on Wanton you deal with a number of volatile issues. Your pieces Dear Jesus and Closet--

BM: Oh, yeah, I forgot about those.

SPP: --are both what many would consider vulgar poetry, primarily because of language, perspective and even the basis of the pieces: high fiving Jesus for having been so hip to get on the cross and then to come back from the dead, just to let everyone know he wasn't kidding. Do you feel that when you write explicit poetry that you could lose a portion of your audience?

BM: Well, yes, but hey, I can't be all things to all men. That's what honesty to your voice is all about. I have to be who I am, and those volatile pieces are a part of who I am. In person, a lot of people don't like me, because I'm heavily tattooed and come across as very intense. But that's it. I can't stop. I have to be who I am.

Closet. I wrote closet because of something a man told me, he said, "You know, the greatest part of writing poetry is when you write outside of your experience." That really made me think. And while thinking about that, I sat down and wrote Closet. I have no experience with the stuff I talk about in Closet whatsoever. But I'm glad it impacted you, that you thought about it. As far as Jesus, I just sat down and wrote that one day, I don't know why. I'm not a Christian.

SPP: It didn't seem a very Christian thing to write, but I could be wrong. Is Closet about misogyny or is it about your want for taboo things?

BM: Well, I'm not a misogynist. I prefer the company of women to men. I have a daughter, and I wanted a daughter, rather than a son.

I don't know. I'm just not that deep mentally as a person. I don't analyze my writing. When I was writing Closet, I just wanted to write outside my experience, so I thought about other people's relationships, like the ones I've seen on Oprah or Jerry Springer, or reading Cosmo in the checkout lines at the grocery store.

SPP: Tell us about drugs. In previous versions of the site you spoke of some heavy drug use and your novel talks about the drug life. Is it semi-autobiographical?

BM: Well, I used drugs on a daily basis from the ages of twelve to thirty-four.

Highland Avenue is damn near completely true, but I would never admit that. It's basically a true story, but I left out the really bad stuff. I also tried to make the mundane seem interesting. Also, I took a period of about three or four years, and squeezed all the events down so they seemed like they happened in five or six or ten days. I figured it would seem much more interesting if it all happened at once.

The book's been turned down by all the agents. They said it's commercially inaccessible.

SPP: It's not the only drug novel out there.

BM: No, it's not, but there you go. I didn't go to the publishing houses, I wouldn't know who to go to. People tell me I should, but I don't. I've just shelved the book, and now I'll write something else.

It was a great experience for me. It was wonderful to sit down one morning, not know I was going to do it, and wind up with a 200-plus page novel. It's what I've always wanted to do. Now I'm going to write something else. Maybe a detective story, maybe science fiction, maybe not. I don't know. That's the nice thing about poetry: some mornings you can get up, and just write four or five poems, like that. Writing the novel was a big fucking deal. It consumed my life for six months, I had to worry about continuity and all the other things poetry doesn't require.

But right now I'm just working on my ability to code, to do HTML and PhotoShop. When I'm done, I'll pick writing back up.

SPP: What about drug recovery? How long have you been clean? Are you dry, as well? Do you still go to meetings?

BM: I've been clean for eight years in a twelve-step program. Alcohol is a drug, and I don't do any drugs. Certainly I still go to meetings. I'm very involved in the program. I'm always helping new people.

SPP: There are dozens of wildly popular books chronicling people's recovery stories, but I haven't seen anything you've written on the subject. Why is that?

BM: I've never had a desire to write about recovery. See, when I write a poem, it's an emotional snapshot. I'm trying to capture, with pen and paper, the feelings I had in a specific moment, even in a specific heartbeat. Recovery isn't like that. It's not sudden.

I really don't know who would want to read a story about recovery, anyway. That seems kind of weird.

SPP: Who responds the best to your work? Women or men, black or white? Do you have a feeling for who your audience is?

BM: I think, oddly enough, women like it.

SPP: What makes you say so?

BM: Well, most of the people I know are women, and they seem to like it. I keep my work pretty strictly confined to the Internet. I hate the public, and going in town, so my social and recovery life is not involved in my poetic life. Many of them know I am a poet, but they don't know anything about it, they don't know what I do. But the women I know do seem to like it.

As far as race, I have no idea. But as near as I can tell, black people aren't interested in anything other than being black, which is a shame.

SPP: OK....

BM: I mean, this seems to be a trend, like with any minority. Minority people seem more interested in being part of a minority than being people. Like people that are gay, or whatever: whatever the perceived difference from the rest of us is. It seems to be a focal point to them, and more important than the unity we have. It's too bad, really.

SPP: Do you want me to put this in the interview?

BM: Well, it's like this: black people have been telling me for years that there is a difference between them and me, that there is a Black America and a White America. And finally, it's like, I give up. You're right. You are different.

SPP: But Black America and White America are different cultures, not different races. There are whites in Black America, and God knows there are blacks in White America...

BM: There you go. That's good, see. Put that in. That it's a cultural difference, not a race difference.

SPP: OK, so that's demographics. What kind of person, emotionally speaking, do you think your work attracts? What kind of emotional make-up might one of your fans have?

BM: Emotionally? Damaged. It takes one to know one.

SPP: Why register a domain name as opposed to just running your site out of a personal account?

BM: I wanted a name that was easy to remember. Plus, it was all I knew how to do. I friend of mine has his own domain name, and he showed me what to do, and I just copied him. I mean, I do what I see.

I thought of a lot of domain names, but Wanton was my first choice. The thing was, every single domain name I thought of was free. I don't know what that says about me.

SPP: As your material ages, do you ever decide you don't like your older work or feel some of your writing needs revision, or do you tend to leave your old stuff as it is?

BM: The way I write has changed. See, I write my stuff in books. My first book, back in 1995, was called Slap. I wrote all of my poetry in Slap until I felt that I was done with that book. Then I started in a new book, that I called Psychotic Radio. I wrote in that until I felt finished. I don't even remember the name of my third book.

But after I wrote those three books, and again, I do what I see, someone told me that I shouldn't write like that, that I should organize my works by subject, that that's how people will want to read them. So I went through the first three books and took out all the ones about sex. I compiled them together, and I called the compilation Fuck Talk. It was about forty pieces. Then I took out forty more pieces, and I called that volume Killing Jar.

SPP: And Fuck Talk and Killing Jar were once on Wanton, right?

BM: Pieces of Fuck Talk and Killing Jar were on Wanton, not the whole things. Anyway, now I've stopped compiling my work by subject, and have just gone back to writing in books. I wrote Hysterical Paroxysms next. It hasn't been edited yet. Then I wrote one called Dark Whisper.

So, I had people edit this stuff. Fuck Talk was edited by John Scofield. Then Killing Jar was edited by E. A. Lynch, the woman who does SpokenWar. And parts of Fuck Talk, Killing Jar, and Hysterical Paroxysms make up the coffee table book, Cord.

A few months after I wrote this stuff, I went back over them, cleaned up the language some, just kind of goofed around with them. Right now I'm working on a book called Darwin. I want to publish some of this stuff, but it never gets published, it just keeps backing up.

I use three different voices when I write my poetry. There's the voice I use in Fuck Talk -- actually, I guess there's four different voices. The voice that I use in Closet, I don't use that one much. My earlier work was very bizarre. I like it, because it's so strange. That's the voice I started with.

But a real breakthrough for me came when I wrote Arms. That's my real important piece, that's the piece that I wrote in an entirely new style. I wasn't sure about it, but a woman friend of mine told me, "Yes, this is what you want to be doing. Yes, this is real, yes, it is art, yes, it is your voice. This is how you really write." So now the voice I use most of the time is the one I started using with Arms.

SPP: We know you're a poet, but what else does B. M. Bradley do?

BM: You know, I don't have a social life right now. I've been trying to figure out what to do about that, but I haven't had any ideas. My life is basically work and being a father. My daughter is ten. I'm a weekend dad, but I talk to her every day on the phone. It's really important to me to be there for her. I don't want to pick on her about chickenshit crap, like telling her not to listen to Marylin Manson or watch the Simpsons. I just want to draw the line at the real things, the important things. I'm trying to teach her to be a human being, so that she has a head start.

SPP: I have a hard time imagining you being offended by the Simpsons.

BM: Well, that's what her mother tells her, not to watch stuff like that. Then, I have the recovery thing going. But I really don't have a social life even through that. I know lots of people, because I've been in the program for eight years, but I don't really socialize, I don't go out with them.

SPP: Why not?

BM: I'm just not comfortable with it. I just don't like the idea of hanging around them. I also haven't dated anyone in eight years. I've been thinking I should probably start, but I'm not sure how to go about it. I don't seem to have the necessary skills to do that.

SPP: Shall we put your E-mail address right under that statement?

BM: Oh, sure.

wanton@wanton.com