Things on Which I've Stumbled (New Directions Paperbook) [Paperback]

Peter Cole (Author)

Book Description

Series: New Directions Paperbook | Publication Date: September 17, 2008

Remarkable poetry by the widely acclaimed poet and translator of Hebrew and Arabic poetry.

In Peter Cole's remarkable new book, the forces and sources that have long driven his work come together in singular fashion. Things on Which I've Stumbled rides a variable music that takes it from an archeology of mysterious poetic fragments unearthed in an ancient Egyptian synagogue to poignant political commentary on the blighted hills surrounding modern Jerusalem. Cole's vision of connectedness, his wit, and his grounded wisdom, along with his keen sense of literature's place in a meaningful life, render these poems at once fresh and abiding. Widely acclaimed for his translations from Hebrew and Arabic, Cole is also the author of two highly praised collections of poems. Writing in The New York Review of Books, Harold Bloom called Peter Cole "a major poet-translator." In Things on Which I've Stumbled, he turns to translating the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Cole (The Dream of the Poem) must be one of very few writers to achieve enduring fame as a translator. He lives in Jerusalem and writes his own poems in English, and this first book of his verse in 10 years looks at the long, international history of Jewish literature, the modern enterprise of translation, the troubled contexts of his Middle East, as well as marital love and the making of miracles such as forgiveness,/ friendship souring inside aloneness,// delight which leaves one exalted. His self-scrutiny is identified with Jewish tradition: Where are you, calls the Lord, from beyond/ language. He is outraged at what the state of Israel has become, a state whose army says to Palestinians, in the words of one poem, You'll now need a permit just to stay home. Cole's grave intellection gives this book its best moments and—when his abstractions fail to catch fire—its weakest. Though it utilizes a number of poetic forms, the collection truly shines when Cole chooses the short-lined, sometimes fragmentlike free verse that links him to another poet of terse moral seriousness, George Oppen; admirers of Oppen—and anyone with any interest in Cole's topics—will cherish much of this admirable book. (Sept.)
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Review

Peter Cole is a true maker. His extraordinary learning is deep and personal, and his poems, like his translations, are powered by a large spiritual quest to link and light the world with words. He stands with amazement before great mysteries. (Edward Hirsch, author of How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry)

The keenness of his mind and the moral seriousness of his work astonish....The exquisite specificity of his diction and the intricacy of his prosody are without parallel among the poets of his—and my—generation. (Forrest Gander, author of As a Friend)

Underlying much of his work is a wry sense of humor which peeks through… his own reliance on Kabbalistic allusions. (Jewish Book World)

A major new book. Readers searching for wholly modern poetry dealing with spiritual issues, grounded in history, and presented with great craft will find it in Cole’s new book. (ForeWord, James DenBoer)

A major poet-translator. (Harold Bloom)

[Cole’s] poetry is ... remarkable for its combination of intellectual rigor with delight in surface, for how its prosody returns each abstraction to the body, linking thought and breath, metaphysics and musicality. Religious, erotic, elegiac, pissed off—the affective range is wide and the forms restless. (Ben Lerner, Bomb Magazine)

Erudite, politically charged, and often dazzling…. [Cole is] an unusual and courageous contemporary poet. (Philip Metres, Gently Read Literature)

Prosodic mastery fuses with a keen moral intelligence in this collection…. In his unabashed search for wisdom and beauty—notions many poets today find fatuous or at least too subjective to handle—Cole fearlessly manipulates sonic and semantic patterns…. Working from ancient sources, he has enacted Pound’s dictum to ‘Make it new.’ (American Poet)

[Cole’s] blend of formalism, Hebraicism, poetic midrash, and Modernist collage is marvelous. (Poetry Magazine)

Terrifically impressive. Plainspoken wit [mixes with] gestures towards traditional form, a questioning but always humble mysticism, drawing as much on Muslim as Jewish sources. Brilliant and haunting. (Mark Scroggins, Culture Industry)

Peter Cole is not a household name, but this MacArthur Fellow has had a long and impressive career as a poet…. There is a quiet, streaming power in Cole’s work that leads the reader back to it over and over again. (Bloomsbury Review)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: New Directions; First edition. edition (September 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811218031
• ISBN-13: 978-0811218030
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,162,249 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful poetry, November 23, 2008

By 

K. L. Miller "kid therapist" (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Things on Which I've Stumbled (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

i heard Peter Cole read his "ghazal of what hurt" at the Dodge Poetry Festival. I had known his wonderful translations of Muhammad Ali, but had not known his own poems. This one drew me in, and not so incidentally, helped me decide to go ahead with a hip transplant.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much to delight in for the poetry lover- marred by its political message, May 16, 2010

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Things on Which I've Stumbled (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

My first rule in reading a book and reviewing it is to find what is good in it. There is much which is very good in this book and in the work of Peter Cole. He is a premier translator of medieval Hebrew poetry , a master of intelligent and subtle reading. He is the kind of writer who takes into the bones of his own lines what he has read. And all through this collection are felt the transformation of the poetry he knows , commentary enriching the work. In the opening long poem of the work from which the collection takes its title he stumbles upon lines from the Cairo Geniza and that process of stumbling informs his reading and his re- creation of Jewish history and his own way of looking at and feeling the world. In another of the more notable poems he takes in sucks in , the words of poet Isaac the Blind and makes the process of inspiration a spiritual and organic physical one.
Cole's technical knowledge of poetry and his skill as craftsman are something I sense without fully understanding. I simply do not have the knowledge to really apprehend truly some of the wonderful game- playing he is doing in this verse. I think however true poetry- lovers will find in this collection very much to delight in.
That is the plus side and it is very strong. The minus comes from somewhere else. It is in the political, and to my mind therefore, the moral perception which is prominent in a number of the poems. The most conspicious example is a short poem he writes called 'Israel is'. In four lines Cole manages to project a stereotypical and unfair image of those Jews who believe in the Biblical promise of the land of Israel. These lines reveal to my mind an ' absence' which is felt throughout the collection. This absence is of any real connection, understanding, sympathy for the Jews who actually live in Israel, and have made real sacrifices
to defend it. I would almost want to say it reveals not only an 'absence of sentiment' but a real ingratitude.
Cole is once again an extremely skilled and knowledgable poet. I cannot know or judge whether his lines 'live' for others now and will live in years ahead. I personally did not find in them the music or soul I most love in Poetry. But who knows perhaps my heart was not really as open (for the political reason) as it should have been.