Books

Emu Blis, Bums Line, Blue-ism

Poetry

Broadstone Books, 2024

In this profound volume of experimental poetry, Michael Brosnan exhibits exquisite control as he employs (and invents) tools of verse language (far beyond mere “odd enjambments”) to interrogate – and deconstruct, literally — the word sublime, in all of its senses. “Excellence? Grandeur? Beauty? Inspiring unavoidable awe?” No mere exercise in linguistics, however, his enterprise provides the opportunity to consider no less than the entirety of human existence in the face of “the nagging matter of / the coming Sixth Extinction — hurried along / by superciliousness and / human hunger for what cannot be obtained.” “I want to find less in meaninglessness,” he declares; “I want to know if knowing can save us from ourselves,” and this book is the record of his search for that answer and hope.

“In his third collection, Michael Brosnan dissects and appraises, as with a surgeon’s scalpel or jeweler’s loupe, the concept of the sublime (‘creature of mud and fog’): its guts and wonders, its flaws and majesty. Brosnan’s sport with typography and form depicts the slipperiness of sublimity, and the challenge of discerning it amidst the static of modern existence. A passion project of sweeping scope and crisp wit, this book will engage any reader who’s ever been bewildered or frustrated or amazed by the ineffable grandeur of our beautiful, fractured, complicated world.”

— Maggie Dietz, author of Perennial Fall, winner of the Jane Kenyon Award and the Grolier Book Prize

Adrift

Poetry

Grayson Books, 2023

So many of the reveries and narratives among the poems in Adrift are trapdoors into emotional and philosophical spaces that bring the cosmic and quotidian closer together.  Whether he’s weighing stardust or the “musical hits of 1972,” Pez or the “truth behind the Ascension,” Yoda or Springsteen, Brosnan is a shrewd, seductive observer, flirting with doom, mortality, “the searing knowledge of impermanence,” yes, but also deciphering a way to survive from the “hieroglyphics” of the natural world, “Some truth/about the art of living and perishing/in the flow of things.” I love the poems in this book, would gladly remain adrift in the subtle music of their multi-faceted lineation, their authentic undulating meditations on “the stubborn art of hope.”

 — Ralph Sneeden, author of Surface Fugue and Evidence of the Journey

The Sovereignty of the Accidental

Poetry

HARBOR MOUNTAIN PRESS, 2017

A stunning book — fresh as a crisp wind after days of sluggish weather. Poems which stir language, memory, momentary intense awareness, to give us back the bracing joy of clear thinking. Brosnan writes with a deft, sure hand. How can there be so much potent magic in a single stanza or phrase? It’s as if he found the pulse of poetry.

— Naomi Shihab Nye , author of 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, and other works

 

Against the Current

Nonfiction

Heinemann, 1997

“If you want an inside view of what it is like teaching at an inner city school, ‘Against the Current’ will do it for you. The amazing part about this book is that the director of the program is a quadriplegic. I thought John Hockenberry’s book, ‘No Highway’ demonstrated a paraplegic with grit-The Urban Coolaborative Program director, Rob DeBlois, is an amazing individual and educator.”

— Review on Amazon

The Inclusive School

Nonfiction (Education)

NAIs, 2012

For practical, moral, and academic reasons, a quality school in the 21st century requires a deep understanding of diversity and how schools can work against some of the larger cultural confusion about diversity in America in order to educate the next generation of enlightened leaders and engaged citizens. But developing and maintaining diverse, inclusive communities is an ongoing challenge for schools, requiring constant attention, good will, and continuing dialogue.

For that reason, Independent School Editor Michael Brosnan has put together this selection of essential articles from the magazine that draw on the expertise of seasoned practitioners in the field and cover the broad spectrum of diversity issues — including race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical ability, and more.

Articles

ON THE TEACHING WHILE WHITE BLOG

I serve as Senior Editor for Teaching While White, and occasionally write for the blog under my name.

ON CARNEY SANDOE’S PUZZLE BLOG

I have done some writing and editing for Carney, Sandoe and Associates, a Boston-based firm that specializes in teacher placement, school leadership searches, and education consulting. 

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL

In addition to an Editor’s Note in more than 80 issues of Independent School magazine, I wrote numerous articles and reviews, including:

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

MONOGRAPHS

Hiring and Retaining Teachers of Color: The How and Why of It, Second Edition, Association of Independent Schools of New England, 2015

From Assimilation to Inclusion: How White Educators and Educators of Color Can Make Diversity Work, Association of Independent Schools of New England, 2009

Thriving in Independent School, An AISNE Guide for Teachers of Color, Association of Independent Schools of New England, 2003

Poetry

My poetry has appear in numerous journals over the years, including Borderlands, Prairie Schooner, Barrow Street, Confrontation, Slipstream, Beloit Poetry Journal, Muddy River Poetry, Rattle, New Letters, Poetry South, The Moth, Into the Void, Borrowed Solace, Aji Magazine, Dunes Review, The Antigonish Review, The New Limestone Review, 3Elements Review, The Aurorean, The Hopper, The Fourth River, Marathon Literary Review, Narrative Northeast, Gravitas, Straight Forward Poetry, Ibbetson Street, Gnu, Belletrist, River Heron Poetry, Foliate Oak Literary Review, Into the Teeth of the Wind, Cider Press Review, Red Coyote, The Pedestal, Port Smith, The 2RiverView, Puckerbrush Review, Potomac Review, Delmarva Review, and Anapest.

Here’s a sample of poems available online:

“Swimming” and “Stockbridge to Lee” — The Broadkill Review

“Day Birds at Night” and “Our Overburden” — The Fourth River

“Bending Spoons” — Concision Poetry Journal

“Turnip, Pulled” — The Hopper

“Swimming” and “Stockbridge to Lee” — The Broadkill Review

“Now That I’m a Grandpa” — Delmarva Review (via Talbot Spy)

“Cocktail Hour” — Rattle

“Saying Yes or No to One Thing or Another,” — Muddy River Poetry Review

“Before You (By Which I Mostly Mean I) Die” — The Decadent Review

“Yes, Who Were Those People?” — Delmarva Review (via Talbot Spy)

“In the Meanwhile” — Posit: A Journal of Literature and Art

“Arrowhead” — Foliate Oak

“The Whole Point,” “Everything,” and “The Slant of Summer” — Revue {R}évolution

“December” and “Unstill Life with Hospital Cup” — The Pine Cone Review

“The Year to Come” — Cider Press Review

“The Way She Goes” — Grand Little Things

“Errata,” “Crow,” and “Ping-Pong with Pliny” — available on Project Muse

“Bookmarked,” “Quick,” and “The Mourning Dove” — Aji Magazine

“For No One” — The New Limestone Review

“Ferrying,” “Caesura,” “The Dead of Afternoon,” and “What Now Is Was Then Tomorrow” — Wilderness House Literary Review

“Certain Light” — 3Elements Review

“The Way She Goes” — Grand Little Things

“Big Zoo” — Narrative Northeast

“The End of the Road” — 2RiverView

“After the Blizzard” — Anapest

“At Charlie Mann's All-Pro Grill” — Anapest

“Utopia” — Into the Void

“The Frontier” — Marathon Literary Review