Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome writer D. Dina Friedman of Massachusetts with three poems, each contemplating a different type of space. “QUESTIONS ABOUT THE UNIVERSE” gazes into deep space. By comparing a meteor sighting–“I’ve been told they disappear/ if you look at them straight on”– to viewing a tumor with radiation, Dina explores how we confront and deal with cancer and mortality in general. “SLOT CANYON” takes us into a sandstone canyon, exposed to the elements, to risk and, once again, to mortality. “No covering for the crumbled cracker of your body/ wedged loose.” The final piece is “THE GAP,” which exposes the injustice at the southern border of the United States, one of the spaces in our society where mercy fails. She likens it to the murder of her relatives in Ukraine last century. When we no longer care about our neighbors, we invite mass murder and genocide. There is an economy of words in these poems, nothing superfluous or wasted, the vulnerability of thought laid bare. Enjambment moves us forward, while alliteration slows our pace, opening our ears and eyes to the space around and within us, those negative spaces we don’t see unless we change our focus.
Experience Dina’s insightful poems in Synkroniciti’s November 30th issue, “Space,” Vol. 5, No. 4, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
D. Dina Friedman has published widely in literary journals including Rattle, The Sun, Chatauqua, Mass Poetry, Hawaii Pacific Review, Crab Orchard Review and received two Pushcart Prize nominations. She’s the author of two young adult novels: Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) and one chapbook of Poetry, Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press). Her short story collection, Immigrants, has just come out from Creators Press, and a second chapbook of poetry, Here in Sanctuary, Whirling is scheduled for publication by Querencia Press in 2024. She has an MFA from Lesley University and taught for many years at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst.