D. Dina Friedman voices her poems so casually, only careful readers will wholly appreciate her unruly imagination. Syntactically, a poem like “We Are Stuck in October” destabilizes us right off the bat: “the remnants of leaves/shellacked on the slippery stoop test our dogged/tenacity.” By poem’s end, we’ve encountered a funeral, a Yankees game, athletes’ acts of conscience during the national anthem, and the ecological perils threatening “these slippery, tilted times.” Each poem in this book takes us on a journey, many involving Friedman’s Jewish heritage, deeply but skeptically engaged. “Munich” finds present-day remnants of a murderous history “where fires consumed my ancestors’ hair”; while “The Tenth Plague” gives up-to-the-minute idioms to an Egyptian firstborn harassed by “the Guy [who] hardened the Pharaoh’s heart.” If Friedman’s default tone is disabused irony, she’s not adverse to praise, as in the stunning “Letter to God from Florida.” From the itchy intimacy of extracting a child’s head lice to “the sobbing guitar” of the blues, this poet, in her lovely debut, gives thanks for all the world affords. Readers will thank her back!
–Steven Cramer, author of Clangings and Goodbye to the Orchard
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Thanks, Steve Pfarrer, for this great review in the Daily Hampshire Gazette!
Listen to Dina discuss Wolf in the Suitcase on WMUA’s Poetry a la Carte:
Hi Dina,
I am reading your poems aloud, to feel their flavor on my tongue. “Wolf in the Suitcase” tastes dark, with a surprise waiting to pounce, like a cup of hot cocoa that turns out to be laced with brandy. I will savor each one.
Thanks,
Steve,
Thanks so much, fellow poet, for your kind words and your luscious metaphor! I hope that everyone will check out your brilliant book, Strange Harvest.
All the best,
Dina