“Puddles,” “The Elusive Art,” and “The Apricot Tree” by Alice Friman appeared in Issue 44 and can be found here.
We’d love to hear more about “Puddles.”
“Puddles” came out of the blue. I had no idea what I was writing about until days after it was finished. This is very unusual for me. By the time I’m half through and anticipating the end, I usually know where I’m going and how it’s going to end. Of course I should have known for it was two weeks after my sister died. I hadn’t spoken to her for fourteen years. And now, rereading the piece, I see I was speaking to her at last, but not the her I last knew but the her I knew from childhood. I couldn’t have written it any other way.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
I’m a friend of the great, and prolific poet, Albert Goldbarth. We’ve been exchanging letters for ten years now. His book, History (and pre) is a must read.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
This is dfficult. I am 91 years old. Most of the writers I’ve steeped myself in are gone now.
So I’ll say their names anyhow. Anne Sexton, Louise Glück–yes especially Louise Glück–Hilary Mantel, Wendy Barker, and, oh yes Marianne Boruch who’s still very much alive
What are you working on now? What’s next?
At this age, I am grateful for every poem that comes, every idea that still visits me. If I get a chance to put together another book, I’m naming it Kiss Me Goodnight.
Our thanks to Alice for taking the time to answer a few questions and share these poems. Read “Puddles,” “The Elusive Art,” and “The Apricot Tree” here.
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Alice Friman was born and brought up in the heart of New York City. She lived forty-plus years in the midwest, and now lives in Milledgeville Georgia. Her eighth collection of poems is On the Overnight Train, a New & Selected from LSU Press which just won The Society of Midland Authors Poetry Award, 2025. Her previous books, also from LSU, are Blood Weather, The View from Saturn, and Vinculum, which won the Georgia author of the year in poetry. She’s a recipient of many prizes including three from The Poetry Society of America, a Best of the Net award, and two Pushcart Prizes as well as being included in Best American Poetry. Other books include Inverted Fire and The Book of the Rotten Daughter, both from BkMk Press, and Zoo, U of Arkansas Press, which won the Sheila Margaret Motton Prize from The New England Poetry Club and the Ezra Pound Poetry Award from Truman State University. She’s been published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Plume, Poetry East, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review and many others. Her website is alicefrimanpoet.com.