If You Tolerate This

Frank Golden’s If You Tolerate This is a wide ranging work in six parts which nails its geo-political colours to the mast, and casts a misanthropic eye over the whole morass. The book opens in the company of Nick and his girlfriend Inga as they travel up the Tapajós River to the failed capitalist venture of Fordlandia. Failure and the blighted realities of both entitled and marginalised lives suffuse various sections of the book. Poems concerned with political and eco dynamics not only dominate section 5 but inform the book as a whole. If You Tolerate This ends with a group of ghazals that Golden wrote having back-packed through Iran in 2019. This is a book with a large cast of characters, both familiar and new, who are as riven and corruptive as the age we live in. Praise for Golden’s last book of poems Gotta Get A Message To You “Golden is a poet to get excited about… This is a startling and exciting collection.” – Afric McGlinchey, Southward Journal “I have rarely been so moved by a book of poems.” – Grace Wells, Fur “A fantastic new collection by Irish poet Frank Golden. It has floored me like no book of poetry has in a long time. Golden has an uncanny ability to touch on the things that move us most deeply.” – Phil Hanrahan, Bookish Review/USA