This is a beautiful collection of poems and a bit of poetic prose (I'm not sure what the delineation is between them). Some of it is soaring and universal, and some tells the concrete story, or bits and pieces of it, of the events in Mojgani's life that he's mourning: the suicide of a dear friend a decade before and the much more recent and raw end of his marriage. Little bits of the stories come out in the poetry, here and there, sometimes repeated because they're important and true. Similarly, little bits of his poetic themes come out, repeated here and there, repeated because they're important and true. The titular small gods are the Greek gods, and the sections of the collection are named after figures in mythology, some of whom endure suffering, often repeatedly (Sisyphus, Promethius). There is also an earthiness to his imagery: rocks, stones, boulders, soil, sticks, trees, some small, some large and unlovable. The over arching image of the collection is that he sometimes picks up small stones, writes something his did that day on them, no matter how trivial, and then carries them around in his pockets. That very act makes for an interesting poet and beautiful poetry.
It's hard to describe how much I loved this collection, but I thought I might at least make a record of my experience of it to remind myself of the gist. The language is powerful, and sad, yes, but not overwhelmingly so. It is the voice of man who is suffering but has chosen to live and move and breathe. But yes, it does have the numbers for a couple suicide hotlines in the back and a reminder that sorrow is normal and should be shared, not hidden away in shame.
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