UW-Madison Libraries - Parallel Press Poetry Chapbooks

Parallel Press Poetry Chapbooks

We Nod Our Dark Heads
Lisa Marie Brodsky
$10

Driven by the twin muses of confessional poetry and theatre from a young age, Lisa Marie Brodsky grew up in Chicago and received her B.A. in English/Creative Writing from Loyola University. In 2001 she moved to Madison, and she completed her M.F.A. in poetry in 2005. She has been published in Atlanta Review, Born Magazine, The North American Review, and The Southern Ocean Review, among others. She won first place in Circle Magazine’s poetry contest and honorable mention from the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poetry. She founded and facilitates Inside Out Writing Workshops, which focus on the benefits of emotional healing through creative writing. Lisa Marie currently resides in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

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Samplings...

Music Box

In the music box a delicate
melody plays; she watches the plastic
figurine twirl, her tutu
suspended in air.

Her grandmother gave this to her
when she was a young one
in the early 1920s.
Grandmother was blind and

only spoke Yiddish but she
handed this music box to her
with such pride that language
did not matter; it was only

the sound of the melody
taking them far away,
away from Chicago slums
to a concert featuring

the beautiful ballerina
in a standing-room-only show
perhaps in Paris or Moscow;
it could be anywhere.

Grandmother and granddaughter
could understand each other’s
speech through the arabesques
and leaps of the thin wispy wind
of a girl dressed in pink.

-Lisa Marie Brodsky
We Nod Our Dark Heads