Among my favorite pieces (and there are many) in Brad Rose’s wonderful new prose-poetry collection, Lucky Animals, are “Chatbot” and “My Blue Period.” They’re exemplars of the richly textured landscapes in the volume’s 100-plus narratives. Rose’s micro stories are not easily digested, but therein lies their virtuosity. They are multi-dimensional parables/parodies probing human behavior and perception that while diminutive in length are expansive in reach and insight. Activate your literary GPS and go where this highly original work takes you. You’ll have a wild and satisfying ride. Recommended without reservations.
Michael C. Keith, Quiet Geography and Bodies in Recline
Lucky Animals
Reading Brad Rose’s Lucky Animals is like a wild ride at the fair, where you drink it all in, and crave more. His work is unique and genius.
Niles Reddick, If Not for You
In Lucky Animals Brad Rose shakes things up with his supple, wild, and wise prose poems. No grass grows under one’s feet here, and yawns do not exist. These wry and wonderful excursions turn on a dime and jump the tracks into previously unexplored, unanticipated lands. Here is a master wordsmith with hot hands on the wheel.
Robert Scotellaro, Bad Motel and What Are the Chances?
Brad Rose’s stories in Lucky Animals are genuine treats: whimsical and surprising; thoughtful and fantastical. As you traverse each sentence of each story in Rose's micro story universe, you feel as though you’re hopping along a disparate jumble of stones in a shallow river that ushers you onto a path of fascinating coherence and wonder.
Phillip E. Temples, The Kanawha Anomaly and A Home for Laika
Brad Rose fires off sentences like the Three Stooges with bazookas. His plots are fractured, his characters are eccentric, and his points are for you to figure out. The whole thing is meshuggeneh -- but in the best way.
Howie Good, Swimming in Oblivion: New and Selected Poems