The Copper Weathervane

"You will find that Lisa Brognano's voice is intimate and clear, and her words are kind. She chooses subject matter with care. Each poem is gentle but insistent, inviting us into the narrative, to be part of small, important stories. Brognano's primary goal is to be honest, revelatory, while remaining friendly. Not that she pulls her punches. Even when the topic leans towards the painful, the perilous, Brognano is fully aware of the risk. Her deft touch keeps things real and she never stops wielding her heart as the chief tool with which she crafts."

- Garrison Somers, Editor-in-Chief, The Blotter Magazine

"Lisa Brognano's poems in The Copper Weathervane are doorways to life's small wonders. Old men roast under the sun. Swimmers race through the water. A woman gazes at the night sky. These poems are clear-eyed and entertaining vignettes that help us better grasp our relationships with nature and humanity."

- Benjamin Woodard, Atlas and Alice Literary Magazine

Lisa Brognano's poems separate the feminine from masculine, explore what we lose when we exchange the music of songbirds and crickets for modern life, and asks us to remember the wolves on the perimeters.  Amongst these themes, we are introduced to a cast of characters-captain, farmer, Korean War vet, violinist, to a pair of childhood friends.  Romance also abounds in this poetry collection from a suitor who questions his leap to commit, to the rekindling of long-lasting love, to the exchange of lust that unknowingly takes us to different places.  Can we harness time?  Believe there is an art to war? Watch the sky for direction?  Brognano presses us to answer.  "Violin Girl" instructs to play for others while we continue to consult with the wiser, older woman in "Returning a Dollar."  Like the Potawatomi who honored the Four Directions, the East for illumination, the South for vigor, the West for contemplation, and the North for survival, Brognano perfectly titles her second collection. 

 - Christine Redman-Waldeyer, author of Frame by Frame