The Waiting Tide is a bilingual homage to Pablo Neruda's classic tome of love poetry, The Captain's Verses , mixing classic love poetry with verse of a more modern and visceral bent, and all while never straying far from the sea. Illustrated by Chicago artist Brett Manning. It’s no small task to undertake a poetic homage to Pablo Neruda, yet Bradley attempts exactly that with his second book of poems, a bilingual collection of love songs. Bradley’s poems, composed originally in English, have been translated into Spanish, and each echoes the erotically charged imagery of the Chilean master, with especial attention to water and waves, currents and eddies. At their best, Bradley’s poems manage, like Neruda’s, to address both an apostrophized lover and the art of writing with the lyrical emphasis gliding from person to poetry and back again, like shifting currents. The book’s finest verses overturn expectation, as in “This Inspiration, This Swelling in My Ribs for You”: “they say / there’s nothing new / under the sun, / but there is nothing / like this.” If the poems want for anything, it’s a measure of complexity when it comes to questions of consent and shared desire, but Bradley recoups respect by returning always to his South American source of inspiration, no stranger to risqué innuendo himself. --Diego Báez " The Waiting Tide is a love letter paying homage to Neruda, to the flow of tides and language. Ryan W. Bradley’s sensual language washes over you in waves." — Ellen Bass, author of The Human Line " The Waiting Tide is a love letter paying homage to Neruda, to the flow of tides and language. Ryan W. Bradley’s sensual language washes over you in waves." — Ellen Bass, author of The Human Line " The Waiting Tide is a love letter paying homage to Neruda, to the flow of tides and language. Ryan W. Bradley's sensual language washes over you in waves." --Ellen Bass, author of The Human Line Ryan W Bradley: Ryan W. Bradley has fronted a punk band, done construction in the Arctic Circle, managed an independent children's bookstore, and now designs book covers. He is the author of three chapbooks, a story collection, PRIZE WINNERS (Artistically Declined Press, 2011), and a novel, CODE FOR FAILURE (Black Coffee Press, 2012). He received his MFA from Pacific University and lives in Oregon with his wife and two sons. Brett Manning: Brett is a young artist living and working in Chicago.