Synkroniciti is happy to welcome poet and author Carol Coven Grannick from Chicago with “I’m Not David,” a marvelous poem about how art surprises us. At the Galleria dell’ Accademia in Florence to see Michelangelo’s David, Carol finds herself captivated instead by his Young Slave. This figure, one of a series never finished, never liberated from stone, speaks of becoming and process in a way that David, in all his glorious perfection, cannot. “You stop and our spirits connect. I do not signify/ those who fly by me in disregard. No, I do not.” This nameless, anonymous man is a closer depiction of our existence than David will ever be and we are drawn into Carol’s exploration of his ambiguities and possibilities: “where does ear protrude or lie flat? Indeed, where is my face, and is it strong or resigned in slavery to nonexistence, am I determined or contemplative…” Carol’s descriptive power, which comes from a keen eye, ripe vocabulary, and natural sense of rhythm and repetition, transports us and shows us something we might have missed, even had we been there in person.
Read “I’m Not David” in Synkroniciti’s “Vulnerable” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Carol Coven Grannick is a poet and children’s author who is immensely grateful for being able to play with and create poetry for the very little among us, and for the rest of us! Her work has appeared and is forthcoming broadly in both areas, including numerous print and online lit mags, several anthologies, and her debut novel in verse, REENI’S TURN (Fitzroy Books, 2020). As much joy as she gets from writing, revising, tweaking, and submitting work, her favorite activity is an author visit—sharing the joy of writing and reading poetry out loud. She hopes to continue to write and share poetry until she drops. She can be reached through her website: https://carolcovengrannick.com.