Book review:
The Man in the Park
by Michael Grover




The Man that Lives in the Park is kept from cliche and boredom. This chapbook is a call to people to respond quickly, decisively, and appropriately to changes in political enviornments, and racial or economic intolerance. Grover, through his writing, implores the need for a moral, ethical, and encouraging presence.

Michael D. Grover converses as a silent voyeour with Hank, the invisible madman who converses with cranes. Grover delicately unravels in excerpts the few months of a man who blends into the background of America. In poems such as (17) Seventeen:

Wind in his hair,
his beard,
and the palm-trees,
blowing
wind in my hair,
my beard
and the palm trees
I am writing."

Grover himself is unravelled as well, as a man who identifies somewhat with Hank, but this poet is anything but invisible. Hank is indeed a universal character calling out to the madman in all of us. Every human is Hank and Hank is more than human.

Michael gives a strong voice to those who are not heard. He gives dignity to those that may themselves lack dignity. He makes a statement for Hank and those men and women like Hank. "This [collection of poems] in itself / a defiant gesture / like a middle finger / at the system. / The invisible man / will be seen." And Michael D. Grover will be sure he is.

The Man that Lives in the Park can be purchased at Covert Press here.