“The poems of Angela Janda’s Small Rooms With Gods, provoked by an adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone, take the ancient Greek story into new territory, beyond the direct clash of state authority and social duty, and into the subtler terrain of ambiguous relationships and emotional compromises. Janda escorts us through the various characters’ motives, actions, and reflection—beginning with a spare announcement of the death of Oedipus, through an investigation, to social and familial upheaval. From report to work-in-progress, to scripted drama, to full production, to what an audience takes away, and what an actor re-embodies—it culminates in a retrospective interpolation of Antigone’s growth—as character, as archetype, as focus of a society’s moral understanding. These poems powerfully synthesize tense drama and deep examination of the struggle for ethical maturity, in a brilliant range of voices.”
-John C. Rezmerski, Poet
Gustavus Adolphus College Professor Emeritus of English
Angela Janda 