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In This May Sound Familiar, the fifth poetry collection by Michael Favala Goldman, winner of the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Festival Award in Poetry, the poet reminds us of the joy of uselessness, how recognizing our powerlessness to create utopia may be the first step toward stopping self-sabotage. In "Crying in Unison," Goldman writes, "We have to be soggy and damp/ with ruined hair-dos and sloppy shoes...so we can't go home the same." With dark humor and familiar scenery, these poems are steeped in the universal conflict inherent in being human with regard to relationship to others, to nature, and to ourselves. "Let me do to you/ what moths do/ to the cherry trees/ Love you/ into oblivion."
The reader recognizes mundane domestic scenes of cat sitting, repairing a vase for an anniversary present, and putting away dishes, as doorways into the subconscious, which repeatedly dredge up barriers to belonging. From "Unintended Consequences" "There is nothing/ to figure out. There is only reality, / steadfast and patient, while you explore/ every other corner of the room."
In addition to these confrontations with domestic self-sabotage, This May Sound Familiar holds numerous reflections on the creative process "Art is a way/ of slowing down/ the velocity/ of experience" and of the solace of nature, which though full of conflict, seems to be in relative harmony anyway. "Nature didn't care, took me as I was."
And finally, there is hope amid the irreconcilable differences: "Plenty of darkness happens/ in the light of day.// But night is when/ the stars shine through."
