Jeff Friedman, Ashes in Paradise, MadHat Press, PO Box422 Cheshire, MA 01225, 2023, 83 pages, ISBN 978-1-952335-69-3 (paperback), $19.95
Ashes In Paradise, the new book by Jeff Friedman, is a book of prose poems with unbridled imagination. The diction of the narratives is as crystal clear as Hemingway. It is achieved through the narratives by amazing twists and turns that a ‘realist’ would never invent, but a super-talented surrealist like Mr. Friedman breathes it. The title of the book describes its contents. Ashes and dust are key elements of the narratives as is Paradise, the ideal, the desired state.
Each narrative is a page or two long. A sampling of titles of the narratives (these from Section 1): The Touch; Catching the Monster; Spring in the Air; About Face; The Boy with Holes; Bad Day for the Shooters. No One Visits.
Often poems are paired that have similar scenarios. Here are two from the above list.
The Boy with Holes
The officers who shot the boy repeatedly watched him fall face first, his arms and legs jerking until all movement ceased. They kept their distance, holstering their weapons, sure that it was over, but the boy rose, his sweet face dirt stained. He walked slowly toward the officers. Light poked through the holes in his body. The ground was wet with blood. They stepped back and took out their weapons again. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” one officer said. The other agreed. Though they told him to stop and get down on his knees, the boy kept walking until he stood so close he touched one officer on the arm. Like a breath grazing the skin, his hand felt weightless. The officer cocked his gun and held it to the boy’s head. Crows gathered around them. The trees rustled. The red sun flared so intensely they had to squint to see his shape, and then the boy vanished. Now all they could see were the holes.
Bad Day for the Shooters
They shoot holes in the river, but the holes close up, and the river runs on. They shoot the shadows that leap out of the river, and the shadows fall bleeding light.
They shoot the ducks from the branches, but they aren’t ducks. “What did we shoot?” one asks. “I don’t know,” another answers, but they needed shooting. “They shoot the bellies off clouds, but the clouds grow new bellies, so they shoot them again. They shoot the lizards lounging on rocks, but the lizards don’t budge. In town, they shoot the windows on Main Street and the beggars on the sidewalks, and then there are more windows, more beggars cupping their palms. They check their guns, reload. They shoot the mothers pushing their babies in strollers, but the mothers keep pushing their strollers, and the babies laugh like dolls with computer chips. They shoot grandmothers and grandfathers who rise like vapor and rain down on them until they run for shelter, their hats flying off, their guns dripping puddles.
What are these narratives? Surreal scenes? Satires of, unfortunately, American life, or life in the world in general obsessed with guns and death? Are these satires comic, tragic or both? Guns are not the only thing brought to absurdity. His prose poem “The Touch” addresses the Midas myth. The speaker says “Everything Midas touched turned to gold, but everything I touch, except myself, disappears. The speaker’s curse is that “I am surrounded by holes. And all my people are gone, memories also. Touching others once brought me pleasure, but now I touch no one, and no one disappears.” There is such irony in that last statement. Is this not a portrait of old age?
There is a piece titled “Orgasms on Amazon Prime.” Kind of a sci-fi scenario but fascinating. It is also a satire of our consumer culture. Do you want comedy? Check out “Dinner Magic.” I laughed out loud at that. There are new takes on Biblical myths: “The Voice in the Bush”; “The Ark”; “Flood”; “Offering” about Cain and Abel. Fascinating thoughtful perversions of Biblical lessons. There are also stories set with the narrator’s family, fictional and/or real. The book is a wealth of narratives that may have some readers shaking their heads, while others grab the imaginative insights portrayed or released from this artistic endeavor.
I think Friedman is a source of inspiration for other writers. What he has accomplished is difficult to bring off, but it is a way of letting your imagination gallop over ordinary life and to startle readers and yourself by the sound of the hoofs of your ideas.
© Jeff Friedman and Dan Cuddy
Jeff Friedman is the author of ten collections of poetry and prose, including The Marksman (Carnegie Mellon University Press), 2020) and Floating Tales ( Plume Editions/MadHat Press, 2017. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry and The New Republic. Friedman is married to the painter Colleen Randall, and they live with their dog Ruby, a mini Aussie, in west Lebanon, New Hampshire.
Dan Cuddy is currently an editor of the Loch Raven Review. In the past he was a contributing editor of the Maryland Poetry Review and an editor for Lite: Baltimore’s Literary Newspaper. He has had a book of poetry published “Handprint on the Window” in 2003. Most recently he has had poems published in the Pangolin Review, Madness Muse Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, the Rat’s Ass Review, Roanoke Review, the Amethyst Review, Synchronized Chaos, Fixator Press, Beatnik Cowboy, Gargoyle, and The Chamber Magazine.
The Loch Raven Review 