Pareidolia

“An exquisitely crafted lyrical lens held up to a life not merely lived but deeply examined…” 

“Pareidolia is an achievement of voice and style available only to the mature and fully realized poet...”

• • •

Here in the mannequin factory, the question

of perfection stays fixed in the mind —

as well as the one about what is real.

These mannequins?

I know they are not flesh-and-bone real.

Not heart real. Not mess-up-your-life real.

Not hanker-until-it-hurts real.

But I stare nonetheless

as if they were some kind of kin.

I speak to them in dulcet tones,

admire how they calmly take everything in. 

These Buddhas of impossible proportion,

in permanent pose and repose.

I love how without complaint they go

where needed, wear what must to be worn.

Deal with all that comes…

  • • •

Praise for Pareidolia

Michael Brosnan’s terrific fourth book, Pareidolia, lives within the curious and wonderful moments where lives brush against each other. Here, encounters with ducks, herons, lovers, tuna sandwiches, and strangers are a “parade in random patterns.” Yet Brosnan deftly — and with such heart — turns these associations into the very essence of how we experience life: nonlinear, and with an immediacy to the threads which connect us to each other, which ground us in who we were and who we will become. “Some days you’ve just got to believe / there is no grand plan,” Brosnan writes, taking genuine comfort in the seemingly chance ways our lives take shape. Through it all, Brosnan is a poet in awe of his surroundings, eager to document with clarity everything from the tongue of the vole to the expanse of language, seeking meaning within each thread that makes a life.  

— Samantha DeFlitch, author of Cornerstone and the 2025 Artist in Residence at Acadia National Park

An exquisitely crafted lyrical lens held up to a life not merely lived but deeply examined, Pareidolia, as the title might suggest, is an artist’s attempt to find, in the shapes and lines of poetry, meaning and patterns in the great mystery of our shared human existence. Navigating through city and country, through the natural world and the human, through the music of language and the language of music, Brosnan, with stunning verse, meditates upon joy and loss as only an older poet can and yet with all the vibrancy and energy of a still discovering artist. Pareidolia is an achievement of voice and style available only to the mature and fully realized poet.

  —   Matt W. Miller, award-winning author of Tender the River and Club Icarus.

Pareidolia is available through Broadstone Books and wherever books are sold.