Don't Beat Your Children Or They'll Turn Out Like Me

BLUE aka Brad Bathgate was born in Harlem, but raised as a military brat between New York, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Germany. Upon returning to the states from Germany as a teenager, he experienced culture shock and quickly developed a discerning eye, which lends to his writing today. Growing up during the early stages of Hip Hop, he has always been fascinated with words. However, it wasn't until 1998, when he attended a poetry reading at the Sugar Shack, in Harlem when he found his calling and began to take writing seriously.
After experiencing the other poet's manipulation of words, Blue realized that writing was what he wanted to do, concluding there was no limit to what he could say or write, provided it was creative. BLUE Is the author of "Corner Stores in the Middle of the Block, " a collection of original poetry and short stories and in the spring of 2002, he was published in "Signifying Harlem, " an anthology of poetry.
He has performed at the Nuyorican Poet's Café, The Bowery Poetry Club, The Poets House and The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in association with Cave Canem Poets. Blue performs at art galleries, museums, lounges, comedy clubs, colleges, universities and poetry venues in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Philadelphia and Baltimore, at times, walking away as open mic winner from the Nuyorican Poetry Café and Jimmy's Uptown Hottest Poets to name a few.
In December 2005, he was featured in "The New York Daily News Paper" and they were quoted saying "His career is on the write track."