Listen to Garrison Keillor read “At Quarter to Five” on The Writer’s Almanac.
finishing line press
Radio Appearance 1/26
StandardI’ll be on KUNM’s Spoken Word Hour with Ramona King this week–
Sunday, January 26th at 8pm. You can listen via the stream here: kunm.org.
Poet Lauren Camp will be there too!
n o w a v a i l a b l e
Image“…a brilliant range of voices.”
Standard“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
“…the absolute sparseness and beauty of the language.”
Image“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 from both then and now—partly Antigone and always herself. What is especially wonderful is the way Angela lives through Antigone just as she can ‘see through lonely to the wide / open.’ One of the many strengths of this collection is the absolute sparseness and beauty of the language.”
-Joyce Sutphen, Poet Laureate of Minnesota
Author, Naming the Stars
Order your copy!
StandardPre-orders from now until January 24th will determine the final press run of Small Rooms with Gods. Reserve your copy today!
“This is a wonderful collection.”
Standard“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 perspective and from a new light with profound effect. When reading these poems, there were moments when I too lost my hold on the world and rushed on to assure myself that it wasn’t the last one I had. This is a wonderful collection.”
-Douglas Huff, Playwright
Author of Ophelia and Emil’s Enemies
“These poems grab both mind and heart.”
Standard“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. Muggli
Luther College Professor Emeritus of English
2011-13 Jones Distinguished Humanities Professor
“…beautifully written and deftly arranged.”
Image“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 jars, and wedding bells. Her skillful compositions link the present to the past and the reader feels closer than ever to these figures and their poignant stories.”
-Kerri J. Hame, Ph.D.
Instructional Assistant Professor of Classics
University of Mississippi
Small Rooms with Gods
StandardOrder via Finishing Line Press
In April 2011, I performed in a Theaterwork production staged in the abandoned Tino Griego Municipal Pool off Llano St in Santa Fe. The play was Antigone by Jean Anouilh. Before and during and after my time in the pool, I wrote a book of poems, partly in Albuquerque, partly in Santa Fe, and partly in a little cabin in Moriarty, NM. That little book went out into the world and found a publisher.