The View from Saturn

The View from Saturn - Cover

Poems

by Alice Friman

118 pages / 5.50 x 8.50 inches / no illustrations

ebook available

Poetry

Paperback / 9780807157220 / September 2014
The View from Saturn endeavors to look at the earth and our life on it from two perspectives at once: objectively, as if from a great distance, and subjectively, focusing in on the body with all its cells and hungers. Alice Friman’s poems dance between these two vantage points, asking the important questions: What does it all mean, and what have we become, standing in the midst of the destruction we’ve wrought by “watching the unthinkable going on”?
 
With dark humor and lyric honesty, The View from Saturn provides both a telescopic and microscopic look at ourselves, exploring how in our smallness and perhaps foolishness we are still capable of attaining a measure of nobility.

Alice Friman is the author of six poetry collections, including The View from Saturn and Vinculum. Born in New York City, she now lives in Milledgeville, Georgia.

Praise for The View from Saturn

“While the meaning of life is subject to countless interpretations and worldviews, the only undeniable aspect of life, the only thing in life approaching ultimate truth is this: it must end. The View from Saturn invites us to approach that inevitability with humility, dignity and a touch of humor.”—The Rumpus

“Like its predecessor Vinculum, this collection is full of stories—sometimes stirring, sometimes surprising, and always delivered with a deft and graceful touch. . . . The View from Saturn is the work of a mature poet, confident in her ability to render the capacity of the world to impart its secrets. Much like Billy Collins, Stephen Dunn, and Mary Oliver, Alice Friman combines matter-of-fact observation with a poetic sensibility alive to the mysteries as well as the unfailing certainties of everyday life.”—Chattahoochee Review

“Friman, who espouses a strong feminist ethic, writes poems that are erudite, witty, and confident. . . . These are poems that create perpetual summer from a chill in the air as they celebrate human dignity. Friman as poet is a bold and daring Eve singing us through our first exile and into the 21st century.”—The Journal

“[Friman's] voice can be witty, coruscating, gentle, exhilarated, eloquent, street smart, or wise. She brings to her work the authority of . . . experience, which allows her to say things usually left unsaid. She breaks rules, breaks them with flair and frankness. Lines in her poems are often refreshed by jazzed rhythm and electrically exact diction. . . . I (and many others, I believe) consider Friman one of the best poets writing today.”—Kelly Cherry

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