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The Sovereignty of the Accidental
Poetry. "I was riding in a plane from Dublin when I read Michael Brosnan's poem in The Moth . You know when you feel you've found a poet for keeps? At that moment I wondered if he had many books. Turns out, Brosnan had no poetry book. Now he does. Please greet his debut as I did. He's one for the company of others. Welcome this name perhaps you've never heard of but who has been writing poems diligently and publishing in journals for years."--Peter Money
Naomi Shihab Nye calls THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE ACCIDENTAL a "stunning book...It's as if he found the pulse of poetry," while Eamon Grennan says Michael Brosnan's debut is "an impressive, deeply satisfying debut."
Naomi Shihab Nye calls THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE ACCIDENTAL a "stunning book...It's as if he found the pulse of poetry," while Eamon Grennan says Michael Brosnan's debut is "an impressive, deeply satisfying debut."
- GenresPoetry
131 pages, Paperback
Published December 31, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 3, 2018
This book contains some of the best contemporary poetry I've come across. It's kind of a melange of other poetic styles, but the author's voice really comes out. The book is approachable in a Larkin like way but it remind me also of Plath, early Pound, great poets. It has a lot of humor, honesty, deep thinking, real profundity. Wild creativity at times.
The poems have such a rich variety and are of such superb quality it's difficult to quote from just one and capture this work. One of the reviewers of the book said he has "found the pulse of poetry" but it's more than that, it's the artistic attitude of playfulness and variety. It's the pulse of poetry, but so many different pulses!
How about one that seems to have everything, "Ode to my Factory-Second Grecian Urn", funny, yet deep, the quality of the language just exquisite, or the wildly creative "Infinitesimal", funny and brilliant, or the intensely moving "Dear Dead Days Beyond Recall".
Anyway, I've been deeply stirred and very impressed by this book, I felt like it was my first Aha! poetry moment with a contemporary in - far too long. I've read it six times already, and still finding things. It's a major cut above.
The poems have such a rich variety and are of such superb quality it's difficult to quote from just one and capture this work. One of the reviewers of the book said he has "found the pulse of poetry" but it's more than that, it's the artistic attitude of playfulness and variety. It's the pulse of poetry, but so many different pulses!
How about one that seems to have everything, "Ode to my Factory-Second Grecian Urn", funny, yet deep, the quality of the language just exquisite, or the wildly creative "Infinitesimal", funny and brilliant, or the intensely moving "Dear Dead Days Beyond Recall".
Anyway, I've been deeply stirred and very impressed by this book, I felt like it was my first Aha! poetry moment with a contemporary in - far too long. I've read it six times already, and still finding things. It's a major cut above.
January 30, 2019
This collection of so many memorable poems does not seem like a first book of poems. Since the death of Philip Levine, I have been on the lookout for a new "favorite living poet" (I think everyone should have at least one). Michael Brosnan at times has that deep elegaic tone like Levine, but Brosnan also offers many other kinds of new insightful, poetic lines. His vision lingers just a little longer on images from life, and they ring with a new sort of perception. In "Saying Yes or No to One Thing or Another," after memories of moments with his mother, he closes with:
My mother died at 84. Just slumped over one night.
She was eating an early dinner alone in her beige
ranch house in the Portland hills. Her cane
resting over the back of het chair. On the table:
the New York Times open to a half-finished crossword puzzle,
her cordless phone, a plate with a chicken breast,
broccoli, a buttered slice of bread, and a glass of white wine
with a single, half-melted ice cube melting in it.
To make a poem, the poet needs to take a moving moment and bring it to life, a special life, and this is what this book does time after time. While staying personal, Brosnan also reflects on his place in the history of poetry, which not many do these days, but he never feels self-conscious or forced. In "Through Hell's Kitchen":
"I'm no Walt Whitman. I can't seem to celebrate this hour.
Still, I find myself observing everything
with a new curiosity, impervious to the cold."
He goes from there to a memory of his father who used to walk the same streets:
"By then, he had lost his paler savings at cards.
By then, he, too, would be out trolling
for the boost of simple wisdom,
accepting the quick and true smile on the face
of anyone passing through."
I know this writer has become my new "favorite living poet" because when his next collection arrives, I will buy it without even opening it, take it somewhere, and start reading. My only complaint with this collection lies in a strange spot. I know poetry is supposed to focus only on words, but the cover of the book, though nice, was just not very exciting. It is emblematic of the poems when they explore nature, which they often do. However, Michael Brosnan's imagery is especially forceful in the way that it opens all the reader's senses. Levine's later books continually used a great thematic photograph. and maybe some such image could grace the cover of a future collection of Michael Brosnan, but I'll still buy it and read it no matter what.
My mother died at 84. Just slumped over one night.
She was eating an early dinner alone in her beige
ranch house in the Portland hills. Her cane
resting over the back of het chair. On the table:
the New York Times open to a half-finished crossword puzzle,
her cordless phone, a plate with a chicken breast,
broccoli, a buttered slice of bread, and a glass of white wine
with a single, half-melted ice cube melting in it.
To make a poem, the poet needs to take a moving moment and bring it to life, a special life, and this is what this book does time after time. While staying personal, Brosnan also reflects on his place in the history of poetry, which not many do these days, but he never feels self-conscious or forced. In "Through Hell's Kitchen":
"I'm no Walt Whitman. I can't seem to celebrate this hour.
Still, I find myself observing everything
with a new curiosity, impervious to the cold."
He goes from there to a memory of his father who used to walk the same streets:
"By then, he had lost his paler savings at cards.
By then, he, too, would be out trolling
for the boost of simple wisdom,
accepting the quick and true smile on the face
of anyone passing through."
I know this writer has become my new "favorite living poet" because when his next collection arrives, I will buy it without even opening it, take it somewhere, and start reading. My only complaint with this collection lies in a strange spot. I know poetry is supposed to focus only on words, but the cover of the book, though nice, was just not very exciting. It is emblematic of the poems when they explore nature, which they often do. However, Michael Brosnan's imagery is especially forceful in the way that it opens all the reader's senses. Levine's later books continually used a great thematic photograph. and maybe some such image could grace the cover of a future collection of Michael Brosnan, but I'll still buy it and read it no matter what.
September 29, 2019
Fantastic poems and poet! Some favorites were: Saying Yes or No to One Thing or Another, Ponding, Aftermath, Infinitesimal
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews