A Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of a Sparrow (New Issues Poetry & Prose) [Paperback]

Noah Eli Gordon (Author)

Book Description

Series: New Issues Poetry & Prose | Publication Date: March 1, 2007

Winner of the 2006 Green Rose Prize in Poetry.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With obfuscating cascades of images and precisely tumbling syntax, the 33 archly titled poems and sequences in Gordon's fourth collection attempt to assemble, sometimes like a computer running a poetic algorithm, a hallowed new world flush in art and music. Written with exactness (sonnet sequences, a series of seven line poems, anaphora, etc.), the pieces are thickly smattered with the bedrock and easy emotion of the deep image, the hipster-abstract, and bible-ese: "the sound of smoke // was that of expansion // but the breaking of bread // like a dusk-shadow // became a name // losing itself in echo." When Gordon (Novel Pictorial Noise, chosen by John Ashbery for the National Poetry Series) directs instead of alludes, wonderful harmonies accrete from these patterns: "forget almond trees, grapes & poppies // what he wouldn't believe is the inescapable music here // the night filling with beloved firetrucks // cover your ears to cover the passing sirens // praise the passing sirens." An intellectual latitude is at work here: Gordon references Barthes, Holderlin, Novalis, Stein, Twombly and many others that shadow the cacophony here. If the reader is sometimes pushed away by all the activity, the verse that floats to the top can be stunning.
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Review

He has the restless tones and narrative density of a septet. His work itself glows green with surprises. He is a painter, of course. --David Shapiro

In this ebullient music find the translation of colors, shapes, space, speech, integrity, destruction. --Eleni Sikelianos

Here, every word holds its own echo, as if spoken inside a space helmet, and assumes a vexed convexity of mirror that allows the accidental to slide into the essential --Andrew Joron

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Product Details

• Paperback: 98 pages
• Publisher: New Issues Poetry & Prose; 1st edition (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193097468X
• ISBN-13: 978-1930974685
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #798,635 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Noah Eli Gordon's books include: Novel Pictorial Noise (selected by John Ashbery for the 2006 National Poetry Series); A Fiddle Pulled From the Throat of a Sparrow (New Issues, 2007, winner of the Green Rose Prize); Inbox (BlazeVOX, 2006); The Area of Sound Called the Subtone (Ahsahta Press, 2004, selected by Claudia Rankine for the Sawtooth Prize); and The Frequencies (Tougher Disguises, 2003). Ugly Duckling Presse recently published That We Come To A Consensus, a chapbook written in collaboration with Sara Veglahn. His reviews and essays have appeared in dozens of journals, including Boston Review, The Poker, 26, Jacket, and The St. Marks Poetry Project Newsletter. He writes a chapbook review column for Rain Taxi: Review of Books, teaches creative writing at the University of Colorado at Denver, and publishes the Braincase chapbook series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars quite varied styles, March 13, 2008

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W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of a Sparrow (New Issues Poetry & Prose) (Paperback)

Gordon indulges in quite varied styles in the different sections of this book. One, the Right of Return, is perhaps the tightest. In that its poems seems to thread together into a coherent narrative. Across the poems, a story is being told. Though there is (deliberate?) ambiguity if you try to read them this way. But there is enough logical progression to make a whole part.

The 4 Allusive Fields section has 4 sonnets. These are also and very explicitly connected. But somehow, without quite the same sense of narrative or events unfolding of the Right of Return.

In both, the imagery is vivid and sometimes quite compelling to the mind's eye.