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“…a brilliant range of voices.”
“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,…
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“…the absolute sparseness and beauty of the language.”
“It’s good to be with Angela Janda in Small Rooms with Gods. ‘There is so much prayer here,’ she says, ‘that a person hardly knows what to do. / But give away parts of themselves, / in pieces, or as a whole thing’— which is exactly what she does in this marvelous collection. She writes…
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“This is a wonderful collection.”
“In Small Rooms with Gods, Angela Janda makes us stand on the bloody ground of Thebes, and demonstrates once again that come what may ‘there will always be some who will have to die.’ They are all here, Antigone, Creon, Ismene, Eurydice, Haemon, Teiresias, and even Oedipus, and we see them all from a new…
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“These poems grab both mind and heart.”
“In poems simultaneously contemporary and timeless, this collection imaginatively probes the existential crises underlying the Antigone story. The poems less directly about Antigone somehow become mythic by association. The analysis is thoughtful; the language is taut, meditative, and resonant; the imagery and music are subtly insistent. These poems grab both mind and heart.” -Mark Z.…
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“…beautifully written and deftly arranged.”
“Angela Janda’s poems are beautifully written and deftly arranged. Any reader familiar with the tales of Antigone and Oedipus will recognize these ancient figures in this collection. Their tragic resoluteness is there and keenly exposed, yet Ms. Janda’s creative use of language and imagery holds the reader in the contemporary world of swimming pools, candy…
Angela Janda 