SMALL SOVEREIGN IBD

Sinopse

In Small Sovereign, his second full-length collection, poet Michael Favala Goldman draws on experience as a remodeling carpenter, a jazz musician, a Danish translator, a gardener and a parent, to draw us into greater awareness of lifeâÇÖs minute pains and victories from numerous points of view. 'We are all sharing atoms, at least/.../like the sea mixes with the sky/words do not keep them apart.' The poems explore the paradox of personal power and powerlessness, using everyday experience as a door to the universal. 'The organization has its priorities/which do not include delight.'ááGoldman invites the reader to join him in mundane and transformational experiences, such as picking up a hurt elk, walking by a train-car diner, riding an escalator, touring fields of Verona, making soup for a sick friend, gluing a broken table, and choosing flooring. 'All that separates you/from your surroundings/is your imagination/of yourself being who you are.'ááThe poems of Small Sovereign are short, direct, ironic, touching, and get richer with multiple readings. 'donâÇÖt expect me to stand in the way/IâÇÖm small everywhere/except in my little life/where I am a clumsy giant/trying desperately not/to destroy my own city.'ááAs a collection, the poems inhabit the space between the material world and emotion-based relationships, placing ourselves starkly in this gap, with the responsibility for bridging it, amid progress and failures: 'itâÇÖs almost too much, growing/a love that consumes everything.'