Jeff Friedman shows us the flexibility, stamina, and hilarity of the prose poem in his latest book Ashes in Paradise. Fabulist renditions of the political horror and unease of our times (the pandemic, police violence, political unrest) are set against wry, revisionist Biblical tales and neo-surreal domestic dramas (discounted orgasms delivered by Amazon Prime).... he brilliantly deflects our world's terror back onto the world and we, as readers, see ourselves and laugh an uneasy laugh.
-Denise Duhamel, author of Second Story and Queen for a Day: New and Selected Poems
... In these short (but in no way slight) poetic surrealist tales we encounter: puppets that go hunting, an underwater beggar, a man who eats a piece of a star, a couple who order orgasms on Amazon, a chair that growls ... With an absurdist's wise irony Friedman makes good sense of what undergirds our very real precepts of what guides us, what trips us up, and what along with us, has its grip on the wheel.
-Robert Scotellaro, author of God in a Can and Bad Motel
Ashes in Paradise revolves around themes of otherness, hope and loss: with recurring holes, monsters, masks, lovers, avocados, animals and dreams, a father and mother, sister and brother. Stars and angels, vampires, spots, chairs, a coyote. A lover giving birth to herself. Jeff Friedman's prose is magical yet real, worldly and otherworldly. This book is a planet of its own. Wonderful, original,
and lovely.
-Kim Chinquee, author of Oh Baby and Wetsuit