Blood Weather, Alice Friman's sharply etched new collection of poetry, reminds readers that times of reckoning are marked by blood: the knife, the sword, the cutting word. Blood runs through our history, stories, religion, and art, and we cannot help but play our part by adding to the storm of "fang and claw" and its inherent sorrow. Friman traces this unending path through biblical tales, the war of the sexes, the continuum of art, and her own family and personal life. Her poems reflect on figures ranging from Lady Macbeth-whom Friman sees in the blood-red tree outside her bedroom window-to Cain and Abel in the biblical account of the first murder, through Judge Judy's frustrations when faced with the death of a marriage, to the poet herself as a child learning to read "the ancient writing of the butcher block / streaked with cuts and sacrifice" and the butcher's hands, "blunt-fingered and stained." By turns stark and resilient, the poems in Blood Weather draw on tragic themes and painful memories to evoke the tumult of human nature.
"Among Alice Friman's many great gifts is the ability to stare unflinchingly at the dark complexities of family, nature, civilization, and art that form the groundwork of our narratives of self, and to report back in her stately yet exceedingly practical voice on the difficult beauty she discovers there. This is a brave and honest book, a wise and forthright declaration of power, understanding, an
Sidney Wade, author of Bird Book
"In her stunning new volume of poems, Blood Weather, Alice Friman explores-with unflinching precision and generosity of spirit-the autumnal wants and understandings that bind us, divide us, gift us to the great unknown. Here the dead, however buried, are kissed and so transformed into the vital summons to live more mindful, grateful, and awake, consecrated in the blood coursing through the loving
Bruce Bond, author of Rise and Fall of the Lesser Sun Gods
"Resilient intelligence and a mighty wit distinguish these poems. The poems take tragic themes and painful memories and the stormy weather of human nature as their focus, but the poet's wit restores perspective and is grounded and realistic. Friman's wit is a survival mechanism that is a form of courage and an indicator not just of survival skills but also of the author's implicit and unquenchable
Margaret Gibson, author of Not Hearing the Wood Thrush
