Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back poet and writer D. Dina Friedman, originally from New York City, residing in Massachusetts, with two poems that appeal to the better nature of humanity. “The Basics,” one of our “Belonging” poetry contest finalists, pleads for refuge from trouble–be it prejudice, cruelty or climate disaster. “I need a proven statistic/ that more organisms are symbiotic than parasitic./ What would the world be if all of us were lichens?/ Likened? Liked?” One of the hardest things about modern American life is that every little thing seems so contentious, leaving little room for kindness. Dina focuses heavily on youth, “the sad girl who sulks lonely at her locker, and the boy without muscles, and those for whom a girl or boy costume doesn’t fit their bones.” The verses are measured and full of alliterative music that tugs at the ear, the mind, and the heartstrings. “Hair” is a memoir poem, remembering a time when she and her boyfriend, now her husband of many years, sat down on the edge of a lawn in rural Massachusetts. They were new residents in town, tired and accustomed to sitting in Washington Square Park in New York City. “The owner shooed us away,/ as if we were stray dogs./ Maybe, because we were Jews// or maybe, our hippie hair.” Dina leads us to wondering why we are kind to some people and cruel to others, how our sense of belonging can make us take either road and how arbitrary and petty our clannishness is in the face of time.
Read Dina’s compassionate poetry in Synkroniciti’s “Belonging” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
D. Dina Friedman has published in many literary journals, including Salamander, Rattle, The Sun, Mass Poetry, Chautauqua Journal, Crab Orchard Review, Cider Press Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Cold Mountain Review, Lilith, Negative Capability and Rhino, and received four Pushcart Prize nominations. She is the author of two books of poetry, Here in Sanctuary, Whirling (Querencia Press) and Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press). Dina’s fiction includes the short-story collection Immigrants (Creators Press) and two YA novels, Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar Straus Giroux).