Universal Division

Universal Division is the long-awaited debut poetry collection by Eric DaVanté Toliver-a powerful return to the pen after years of silence, self-discovery, and spiritual awakening. Blending raw emotion with lyrical storytelling, this collection features poems written during the author's formative high school years at Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts alongside newly penned reflections born out of adulthood, healing, heartbreak, and hope. Told through the lens of a Black millennial creative raised on faith, family, and a deep love for the arts, Universal Division is a poetic journey through life's contradictions: joy and grief, silence and expression, division and wholeness. It speaks to the child who was overlooked, the artist who once stopped creating, and the soul seeking to make peace with its past. With a voice inspired by August Wilson, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, and Ava DuVernay, Toliver's work is part testimony, part time capsule. His poems explore themes of identity, mental health, masculinity, spirituality, legacy, and love-with each piece acting as a bridge between who he was and who he is becoming. This is not just a book of poetry.
It is a resurrection.
It is a reckoning.
It is a return. Whether you are rediscovering your own voice or walking through your own universal division, these pages offer a mirror, a melody, and a ministry of words that dare to heal.