Poetry. Italian History. Washington Prize winner, second edition. John Bradley’s persona Roberto Zingarello allows him to become post-war Italy: in love, revenge, and confusion, he sings loose the past, questioning and questing into the uncertain future.

We need more characters like Zingarello in American poetry and more poets like Bradley who will step out of bounds to shake us with writing that is so different and important.–Ray Gonzalez, The Bloomsbury Review

Bradley enters the world of fictive poetry, and we are the richer for it. In Zingarello, Bradley has created a voice big enough to express the human dream of transcending history.–Bill Tremblay