Jeff Friedman (born 1950) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and educator.Chrusciel, Ewa. "Review of Jeff Friedman's Pretenders," ''Poetry International'', November 12, 2014.Smith, Nicola. "Images of Food and Family," ''Valley News'', March 18, 2011. He is known for his lyrical narrative verse rooted in autobiographical experience and for his later

fabulist Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral ...

prose poetry and

flash fiction Flash fiction is a fictional work of extreme brevity that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as " twitterature"); ...

which interweave the fantastical and the ordinary.Doreski, William
"Jeff Friedman: Taking Down the Angel,"
''Valparaiso Poetry Review'', 2003. Retrieved December 17, 2022.Mitchell, Nancy
"Jeff Friedman interviewed by Nancy Mitchell,"
''Plume'', April 2019. Retrieved December 17, 2022.Biello, Peter
"The Bookshelf: Poet (and 'Comedian') Jeff Friedman,"
''New Hampshire Public Radio'', September 29, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2022. In a review of Friedman's collection ''Floating Tales'' (2017), poet and critic Walter Bargen wrote that the author "assembles fantastic tales only to disassemble them, then reassemble them into even more impossible worlds, and yet the reader will find her-or himself believing in their possibilities and often laughing along the way."Bargen, Walter
"Floating Tales by Jeff Friedman,"
''Poetry International'', Issue 27/28, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2022. Friedman is the author of nine collections of poetry and prose, which also include ''Black Threads'' (2007),Makuck, Peter. Review. ''Hudson Review'', 2007, p. 492–93. ''Working in Flour'' (2011),Bland, Celia. "Working in Flour," ''Poetry International'', 2011, p. 662. ''Pretenders'' (2014),Bargen, Walter. "Context with a Twist," ''New Letters'', Spring & Summer 2014, p. 191–93. ''The Marksman'' (2020), and the microfiction collection, ''The House of Grana Padano'' (2022), co-written with Meg Pokrass.Bland, Celia
"Book Review: The House of Grana Padano,"
''100-Word Story'', October 14, 2022. Retrieved December 16, 2022. He lives in

West Lebanon, New Hampshire West Lebanon is a section (pop. approx 4,100) of the city of Lebanon, New Hampshire, on the Connecticut River. The area contains a major shopping plaza strip along New Hampshire Route 12A, serving the Upper Valley The Connecticut River is the l ...

with his wife, painter Colleen Randall.Poetry Foundation
Jeff Friedman
Poets. Retrieved December 16, 2022.

Early life and career

Friedman was born in 1950 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

, the youngest of three children, and grew up in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

.MacDowell
Jeff Friedman
Artists. Retrieved December 16, 2022. His father was a traveling salesman in the garment industry and his mother the owner of a dress shop in downtown St. Louis. Throughout the 1970s, Friedman wrote short stories and poems. He studied with poet

Howard Schwartz Howard Schwartz (born April 21, 1945, in St. Louis, Missouri) is a widely regarded folklorist, author, poet, and editor of dozens of books. He has won the international Koret Jewish Book Award, for the book ''Before You Were Born'', and won a 20 ...

in 1971 at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

before earning a BA degree in English from

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

in Minnesota in 1975. After graduating, he applied and was accepted to the creative writing program at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MA, 1978), where he studied poetry writing with the poet

Larry Levis Larry Patrick Levis (September 30, 1946 – May 8, 1996) was an American poet who published five award-winning books of poetry during his lifetime. Since his death, three more volumes of poetry, along with a book of essays, have been published to ...

. In 1978, he was awarded a Teaching-Writing Fellowship at the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wri ...

at the University of Iowa. He earned an MFA in Poetry Writing in 1980. Friedman's poetry began to be published in the late 1970s and early 1980s in literary journals such as ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

'', ''

The Missouri Review ''The Missouri Review'' is a literary magazine founded in 1978 by the University of Missouri. It publishes fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction quarterly. With its open submission policy, ''The Missouri Review'' receives 12,000 manuscripts ...

'' and ''Ironwood''.Friedman, Jeff. "Mannikins" and "The Record-Breaking Heat Wave," ''Poetry'', September 1980.Friedman, Jeff. "Gnats," ''The Missouri Review'', Fall 1983.Friedman, Jeff. "Wiredraw," "Martha Manning Dress Factory, 1963," ''Ironwood'', Spring 1985. His poems, mini-stories and translations have since appeared in ''

American Poetry Review ''The American Poetry Review'' (''APR'') is an American poetry magazine printed every other month on tabloid-sized newsprint. It was founded in 1972 by Stephen Berg and Stephen Parker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The magazine's editor is Elizab ...

'', ''

Fiction International ''Fiction International'' is a literary magazine devoted to innovative forms of fiction and non-fiction which addresses progressive political ideals. Founded at St. Lawrence University in New York City by Joe David Bellamyin 1973, the magazine mo ...

'', ''

'', ''Flash Fiction Funny'', ''Hotel Amerika'', ''

New England Review The ''New England Review'' is an American quarterly literary magazine published by Middlebury College. It was established in 1978 by Sydney Lea and Jay Parini. From 1982 till 1990, the magazine was named ''New England Review & Bread Loaf Quart ...

'', ''

North American Review The ''North American Review'' (NAR) was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which it was inactive until revived a ...

'', ''Plume'', ''Poetry'', '' Poetry International'' and ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...

'',New Hampshire State Council on the Arts
"New Hampshire Poet Showcase,"
Arts & Artists. Retrieved December 16, 2022. among others, and in anthologies including ''Best Microfiction 2021'', ''Best Microfiction 2022'', ''Cast-Iron Aeroplanes That Can Actually Fly: Commentaries from 80 American Poets on their Prose Poetry'' (2019), and ''Dreaming Awake: New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom'' (2023).Arzate, Ben
"Best Microfiction 2021 Proves The Value Of Keeping It Short,"
''Cultured Vampires'', July 12, 2021. Retrieved December 16, 2022.Pokrass, Meg, Gary Fincke and Tania Hershman (eds)
''Best Microfiction 2022''
Claremont, CA: Pelekinesis, 2022. Retrieved December 16, 2022.Johnson, Peter (ed)
''A Cast-Iron Aeroplane That Can Actually Fly: Commentaries from 80 Contemporary American Poets on their Prose Poetry''
Cheshire, MA: MadHat Press, 2019. Retrieved December 16, 2022.Atherton, Cassandra and Peter Johnson. ''Dreaming Awake: New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom'', Cheshire, MA: MadHat Press, 2023. His first book of poetry, ''The Record-Breaking Heat Wave'', was published in 1986, followed by the collections ''Scattering the Ashes'' (1998) and ''Taking Down the Angel'' (2003).Ashworth, D. J. "To Passionate Revelations," ''Anemone'', Fall 1987.Hastings, Josey. "Friedman's Poetry Leaves Lasting Images," ''Randolph Herald'', May 21, 1998.Bargen, Walter
"Taking Down the Angel (review),"
''The Missouri Review'', Vol. 26, Number 1, 2003, p. 176–78. Retrieved December 16, 2022. In addition to his six later books (including most recently ''The Marksman'' and ''Floating Tales''), two of his translations have been published: ''Memorials'' by Polish poet

Mieczysław Jastrun Mieczysław Jastrun born ''Mojsze Agatstein'' (29 October 1903 – 22 February 1983) was a Polish poet and essayist of Jewish origin. The main themes of his poetry are philosophy and morality. He translated French, Russian, and German poet ...

(with

Dzvinia Orlowsky Dzvinia Orlowsky (born in Cambridge, Ohio) is a Ukrainian American poet, translator, editor, and teacher. She received her Bachelor of Arts, BA from Oberlin College and her Master of Fine Arts, MFA from the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for ...

) and ''Two Gardens: Modern Hebrew Poems of the Bible'' (with Nati Zohar).Mayo, Tim. "The Gorgeous Passion of Symbolism Regained; Book Review of Mieczyslaw Jastrun’s Memorials," ''Poetry International'', February 23, 2015.Doreski, William
"Interview with Poet/Translators Dzvinia Orlowsky and Jeff Friedman,"
''Solstice'', Spring 2016. Retrieved December 17, 2022. Friedman taught creative writing at

Keene State College Keene State College is a public liberal arts college in Keene, New Hampshire. It is part of the University System of New Hampshire and the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. Founded in 1909 as a teacher's college (originally, Keene Norma ...

in New Hampshire from 1994 to 2021, and poetry at

New England College New England College (NEC) is a private liberal arts college in Henniker, New Hampshire. As of Fall 2020 New England College's enrollment was 4,327 students (1,776 undergraduate and 2,551 graduate). The college is regionally accredited by the Ne ...

from 2002 to 2009.Keene State College
"Jeff Friedman Earns First KSC Adjunct Excellence in Teaching Award,"
News. October 1, 2015. Retrieved December 16, 2022.

Work and reception

Friedman's verse poetry focused on timeless themes and images grounded in experience: the failures of the family and the American dream, human fallibility, working life, romantic relationships, beauty and loss, and the potency of memory.Rule, Rebecca. "Friedman stitches poignant scenes with 'black threads,'" ''Concord Monitor'', March 18, 2007, p. D5. Critics noted in these poems a strong sense of place and character, a "rueful lyricism,"Bland, Celia

'' Valparaiso Poetry Review'', 2007. Retrieved December 17, 2022. and a language and tone described as straightforward and accessible, compassionate, honest, unsentimental, and often penetrating.Beschta, James. Review, ''Kliatt'', 2003. Friedman's later prose poetry and micro-fiction center on tragicomic parables involving surreal dialogues, actions and situations rooted in imagination, which often displace contemporary psychological, political and existential questions in order to comment on them more fully or obliquely.Hetherington, Paul and Cassandra Atherton
''Prose Poetry: An Introduction''
Princeton University Press, 2020, p. 112–13. Retrieved December 17, 2022. Reviewers distinguish this work by its comedic hyperbole and pacing, metamorphic quality, irony and social critique.Aguero, Kathleen
"Pretenders by Jeff Friedman,"
''Solstice Literary Journal'', 2014. Retrieved December 16, 2022. Throughout both periods of his career, Friedman has written

midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...

ic poems that reinterpret biblical stories in order to contextualize his personal and social themes in a larger world of myth and Judaic heritage.Friedman, Jeff. "Judges" and Commentary, in 'A Cast-Iron Aeroplane That Can Actually Fly: Commentaries from 80 Contemporary American Poets on their Prose Poetry'' Cheshire, MA: MadHat Press, 2019. Retrieved December 16, 2022.

Verse

Critics have suggested that the primary subject of Friedman's early poetry collections, ''Scattering the Ashes'' (1998), ''Taking Down the Angel'' (2003) and ''Black Threads'' (2007), was a ''

bildungsroman In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ( coming of age), in which character change is impo ...

''-like exploration of self-development through early schooling and work experience, sexual awakening, and apprehension of the humanity of his parents.Rule, Rebecca. "It ain't over till the last stanza," ''Concord Monitor'', February 2, 2003, p. D4.Willis, Irene. "Black Threads," ''Alehouse Review'', 2011, p. 94–96. The latter two books mixed secular and religious impulses displaying both political consciousness and scorching humor (e.g., "The Golem in the Suburbs," "Night of the Rabbi"), as well as more difficult themes involving death, loss, family conflict and bitterness. ''Taking Down the Angel'' was noted for its vivid, dynamic sense of lyric, self-propelled narratives, and use of biblical and literary references; the two poems bookending the collection recalled ''

Death of a Salesman ''Death of a Salesman'' is a 1949 stage play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. The play premiered on Broadway in February 1949, running for 742 performances. It is a two-act tragedy set in late 1940s Brooklyn told through a montag ...

'' in their portrayals of Friedman's father as an icon of the American work ethic and its disappointments. Critic William Doreski described the poetic idiom of ''Black Threads'' as "shaped by the stern notes of the Torah and the casualness of the quotidian … a model of secular redemption from the burdens of family, self and religion through appreciation of the finely textured material and social world."Doreski, William. "Black Threads," ''Home Planet News'', 2007, p. 9, 22. With ''Working in Flour'' (2011), Friedman took on a more surrealist mode that would continue into his later work, introducing vigorous, earthy imagery involving animals and flowers, food and appetites, as well as lovers and family figures. Reviewers described Friedman's poems as celebratory comic parables embracing hope amid the vicissitudes of life with an often rebellious, iconoclastic or unrepentant attitude (e.g., "I Did It" and "Cashing In").Schoeneman, Deborah
"Working in Flour Jeff Friedman,"
''Jewish Book World'', September 1, 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2022.

Prose poetry and micro-fiction

In 2009, Friedman began producing prose poems rooted more in imagination and magical realism than experience. They were first collected in ''Pretenders'' (2014), a book that gave witness to a fractured and corrupt postmodern world through an absurdist outlook that both skewered and accepted the world’s foibles. The metamorphic transformations of its fables and mini-tales—across human, animal and inanimate-object realms (e.g., "Bear Fight," "Pill")—twisted logic and convention beyond resolution toward larger, unexpected contexts of meaning and interpretation, often sardonic commentaries on sex, human frailty and capitalism ("Money," "Brokers"). ''Poetry International'' compared the stories to the fables of

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...

, Miłosz,

Aesop Aesop ( or ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales cre ...

and

La Fontaine Jean de La Fontaine (, , ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Euro ...

, noting a "gentle balancing between light and dark, serious and playful" through which Friedman delved into human isolation, desire, inadequacy and guilt. In ''Floating Tales'' (2017), Friedman offered prose mini-stories and comic sketches similarly influenced by Kafka, fabulists and biblical writers, as well as

Zbigniew Herbert Zbigniew Herbert (; 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998) was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume title ...

, which interwove absurd, mundane and oneiric worlds.Lawless, Daniel. "Introduction," i
''Floating Tales''
by Jeff Friedman, Asheville, NC: Plume Editions/Madhat Press, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2022.Whittenburg, Alice
"Reading at The Irreal Cafe: Floating Tales by Jeff Friedman,"
''The Irreal Café'', April 2, 2018. Retrieved December 16, 2022. These stories often rendered the figurative literal, taking the results to logical, if surreal, conclusions that—no matter how strange—were believable due to the work's plain, rational language, keenly observed detail and physical grounding. Walter Bargen characterized Friedman's vision as one of a "nonlinear, non-logical, out-of-balanced world, a world without a center of gravity," that liberated readers "through yet to be discovered possibilities," absurd truths and a celebration of the imagination. Daniel Lawless described the book as "a 'trip' ''sans'' pharmaceuticals whose only side-effects will be a permanently if subtly skewed sense of the possibilities of the world." Friedman's microfiction collaboration with Meg Pokrass, ''The House of Grana Padano'' (2022), continued to draw on the tropes and approaches of his previous two works.Rammelkamp, Charles
"Meg Pokrass and Jeff Friedman’s The House of Grana Padano,"
''The Loch Raven Review'', Vol. 18, #1, 2022. Retrieved December 16, 2022. Critic Celia Brand called the collection an "entertainingly believable" mix of hysterical concepts and farfetched actions with "the death-defying concision of a highwire act."

Recognition

Friedman has won a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

fellowship for translation (with Dzvinia Orlowsky, 2016), fellowships from the New Hampshire State Arts Council (2003, 1993), a Milton Dorfman Poetry Prize (1998), and an editor's prize from ''

'' (1993). He has had residencies at

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...

, the

Vermont Studio Center The Vermont Studio Center (VSC) is a non-profit arts organization located in the town of Johnson, Vermont. It conducts the largest fine arts and writing residency program in the United States, with a significant population of international artis ...

, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and

Yaddo Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

Bibliography

Poetry

* ''The Record-Breaking Heat Wave'' (

BkMk Press BkMk Press is an independent literary press formerly affiliated with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, that publishes full-length collections of poetry, fiction, and essays. Founded in 1971 by Dan Jaffe, it had been a part of UMKC's College ...

, 1986) * ''Scattering the Ashes'' (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1998) * ''Taking Down the Angel'' (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2003) * ''Black Threads'' (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2007) * ''Working in Flour'' (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2011) * ''Pretenders'' (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2014) * ''Floating Tales'' (Plume Editions/

MadHat Press ''MadHat Press'' is an American and international book-publishing company located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. History MadHat was founded in 2010 by poets Carol Novack and Marc Vincenz as a platform for new American and international writing. At ...

, 2017) * ''The Marksman'' (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2020) * ''The House of Grana Padano'', with Meg Pokrass, (Pelekinesis, 2022)

Translations

* Mieczyslaw Jastrun, ''Memorials: A Selection'', trans. with

(Dialogos/Lavender Ink 2014) * ''Two Gardens: Hebrew Poems of the Bible'', trans. with Nati Zohar (Singing Bone Press 2016)

References

External links

Jeff Friedman
website
Jeff Friedman
Poetry Foundation
Jeff Friedman interviewed by Nancy Mitchell
''Plume'', 2019
"The Bookshelf" Interview with Jeff Friedman,"
''NHPR'', 2017
''Poets Speak'': Jeff Friedman
2017
Jeff Friedman & Meg Pokrass reading, ''House of Grana Padano''Jeff Friedman reading, ''The Marksman''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Friedman, Jeff American male poets Living people Poets from New Hampshire People from Lebanon, New Hampshire Keene State College faculty New England College faculty Writers from Chicago 1950 births