Michael Brosnan is the author of three poetry collections, The Sovereignty of the Accidental (Harbor Mountain Press, 2018), Adrift (Grayson Books, 2023), and Emu Blis, Bums Lie, Blue-ism (Broadstone Books, 2024)
About his first collection, Naomi Shihab Nye writes, “A stunning book.... Poems which stir language, memory, momentary intense awareness, to give us back the bracing joy of clear thinking.” Eamon Grennan writes, “His is a voice of both musical and intellectual authority, and The Sovereignty of the Accidental is an impressive, deeply satisfying debut.” Another reviewer adds, “This book contains some of the best contemporary poetry I’ve come across. It has a lot of humor, honesty, deep thinking, real profundity. Wild creativity at times…. I felt like it was my first Aha! poetry moment with a contemporary in far too long.”
About Adrift, Poet Ralph Sneeden writes, “Brosnan is a shrewd, seductive observer, flirting with ‘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 multifaceted lineation, their authentic undulating meditations on ‘the stubborn art of hope.’”
In his third collection, writes Maggie Dietz, "Michael Brosnan dissects and appraises, as with a surgeon's scalpel or jeweler's loup, the concept of the sublime ("creature of mud and fog"): its guts and wonders, its flaws and majesty..... A passion project of sweeping scope and crisp widt, this book will engage any reader who's ever beenn bewildered or frustrated or amazed by the ineffable grandeur of our beautiful, fractured, complicated world."
His poems have appeared in dozens of literary journals including Rattle, Confrontation, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, Poetry South, The Hopper, Borderlands, and Barrow Street. He had a residency in writing at The Vermont Studio Center in 2019.
Brosnan is also a writer and editor of nonfiction. He is the author of Against the Current (Heineman), a book focused on urban school reform that became the basis of an award-winning documentary, Accelerating America. He served for over two decades as the editor of a magazine on precollegiate education and writes often on the topic. He also serves as senior editor for the education-related website Teaching While White.
He is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire Writing Program and currently lives in Exeter, New Hampshire.
