J Bradley talks with PANK about writing an epic poem.

5. There were many pop culture references throughout the poem. Did you include those to make the narrative more accessible or are they more an organic part of the poem?

The pop culture references felt incredibly organic as I was writing Esmeralda. If it made the narrative more accessible to the reader, then that's a bonus. Eliot worked in Dante's Purgatory with Prufrock. I worked in Joy Division.