An Arm Fixed to a Wing: Poems

by Olivia Clare Friedman

Olivia Clare Friedman’s An Arm Fixed to a Wing seeks out the spiritual elements that haunt the everyday, the divine wing fastened to an earthly arm. Elegies and poems of nostalgia appear alongside pieces celebrating the speaker’s present moment, with the underlying knowledge that such moments slip past too easily. Several poems explore the theme of motherhood—the excitement and novelty, the routine and translucent sleeplessness. At the book’s center sits a sequence of narrative pieces, titled “Camera Poems,” exploring experiences of isolation, hopefulness, and self-awareness.

While the poems in An Arm Fixed to a Wing acknowledge that loss is a constant, their tone is frequently wistful, evoking the desire to recover feelings of attentiveness and wonder toward one’s surroundings, both the mundane and the extraordinary.

Genres: Poetry

69 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 10, 2025

About the author

Olivia Clare Friedman is the author of three books: HERE LIES, a novel from Grove Atlantic, DISASTERS IN THE FIRST WORLD (short stories), and THE 26-HOUR DAY (poems). Her stories have been published in The Paris Review, Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Southern Review, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Denver Quarterly, and other journals. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Prize (fiction), a Pushcart Prize (fiction), a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award (fiction), and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. She is currently an Assistant Professor in English, Creative Writing, at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Reviews

[Iara Moure · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este poemario estuvo bueno, hubieron poemas narrativos que valieron la pena. Las imágenes fueron claras y precisas. Hubieron algunos versos/estrofas que me corrieron el enfoque, pero era fácil de volver a la imagen principal.