"Brognano populates the cosmos of these poems with a smattering of hard-luck characters, lovers attempting (sometimes successfully) to grasp fleeting moments of carnal gratification and transcendent connection, seekers with hints of transport in their eyes, and flora and fauna anthropomorphized intensely enough to suggest a panpsychist metaphysics. With an almost Dickensian gift for savagely ironic nomenclature and suggestions of a mischievous cosmic will that takes a little too much perverse delight in teaching humbling lessons, Brognano's poems offer us a lens through which the world feels richer, wilder, more unique, and wittier than it does to the naked eye"--