You Don't Get to Be a Saint

"Witty, lucid, passionate, the long lines of Friesen's poems reach into 'human days that can't be helped' and retrieve images of intimacy and humility. This is a book of dances and converstaions: between the poet and his anima, speech and the outward silence of thought, language, and gesture. With his customary stateliness and elegance of mind, Friesen engages us to think 'somewhere between yes and no'-- a place, as it turns out, filled with the voices of friends."—Sharon Thesen