Undreaming Landscapes

Reading Paula Friedman's poetry is an adventure. We follow a sharp mind as it cuts paths through rough terrain: inhospitable landscapes, memories, myths and dreams. Friedman's terse, witty, unsparing voice guides us through these strange, dangerous places, in which we will recognize the scenery of our own lives.
-Melissa Monroe, Machine Language
(Aleph Books, New York)

In poet Paula Friedman's Undreaming Landscapes, physical landscapes set the scenes for emotional explorations. Friedman contemplates in beautifully chiseled language grief, death, meaning, and connection. Her philosophical musings, grounded in the physical world, evoke Elizabeth Bishop; in "Salton Sea and Points West" Friedman locates her meditations in evocative descriptions such as "Vast, / silvery, dense with selenium, / a sudden sea appeared." In this poem, she asks what many of her poems wonder: "where to from here?" It is well worth following her on her journey to answer this question.
-Laura Fine, Chair English Department
Meredith College, North Carolina

I've had the pleasure of watching Paula Friedman develop her gift from a yearning to an accomplished poetic instrument. She focuses on immediate things, sharply observed and inhabited moments, that light up much larger ideas; in this book Friedman builds up a world of these moments, bright with empathy and generosity. She gives proof that poetry is as alive and important as ever.
-Cecilia Holland, The Great Maria, Two Ravens,
Railroad Schemes and more
(Knopf, New York)