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Noah Eli Gordon
& Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Figures for a Darkroom Voice
with images by
Noah Saterstrom
- click here for a larger cover image
In Figures for a Darkroom Voice the rhetorical twisting of Noah Eli Gordon’s abstractions meld with the ominous narratives of Joshua Marie Wilkinson’s fragments, turning Wallace Steven’s notion of a supreme fiction toward a supreme friction, one where the work of these two poets is fused into a voice as singular as it is sinister. Imagine a gallery in which Cornell boxes talk back, a Maya Deren film in which the audience dissolves into projector light, a Philip Glass composition played exclusively on medieval weaponry, such are the compelling results of this collaborative work.
In prose poems, syntactically elusive sonnets, and haunting, haiku-like fragments illuminated by the ink drawings of Noah Saterstrom, one encounters a recurring cast of logically-skewed images, inauspicious yet arresting aphorisms, and characters rendered fully bizarre in the lightest of brushstrokes. Here, the slippage and disruptions of textually investigative work collides with the mind-expanding project of conjuring paradox, while never quite leaving linearity behind. When these poets write, “I am trying to draw you a simple picture of explanation,” one realizes the monumental nature of such a task. And this task is made more complex, and ultimately more rewarding, by the inclusion of Noah Saterstrom’s dynamic images. “Who,” Gordon and Wilkinson ask, “operates the levers in this darkroom dress-shop?” Who, indeed! The rich history of literary collaboration just got richer.
These two guys tell us,
“There is nothing that summer can do to us
That we could not ourselves develop in the basement”
so we know
“the sleepwalkers enter a swimming pool
With their haggings& black dresses,”
“raising private horses”
Therefore it’s true
“What mammal wouldn’t want its own vibrant egg?”
They glitter. This book glitters.
—Tomaž Šalamun
About Noah Eli Gordon, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, and artist Noah Saterstrom
Noah Eli Gordon is the author of Novel Pictorial Noise (Harper Perennial, 2007; selected by John Ashbery for the National Poetry Series), A Fiddle Pulled from the Throat of a Sparrow (New Issues, 2007), Inbox (BlazeVOX, 2006), The Area of Sound Called the Subtone (Ahsahta, 2004), and The Frequencies (Tougher Disguises, 2003), as well as numerous chapbooks, including That We Come to a Consensus (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2005; in collaboration with Sara Veglahn).
Noah Saterstrom has exhibited paintings, drawings, projects, and installations nationally and internationally. The recipient of grants and residencies, he also does numerous collaborations with writers and musicians. Recent publications include The Denver Quarterly and Tarpaulin Sky. With Selah Saterstrom he curates Slab Projects, a series of ongoing investigations which generate public works in the New Orleans and Gulf Coast region.
Joshua Marie Wilkinson is the author of Suspension of a Secret in Abandoned Rooms (Pinball, 2005), Lug Your Careless Body out of the Careful Dusk (U of Iowa, 2006), and The Book of Whispering in the Projection Booth (forthcoming from Tupelo Press). He holds a PhD from University of Denver and lives in Chicago where he teaches at Loyola University. His first film, Made a Machine by Describing the Landscape, is due out next year.
Excerpts from
Figures for a Darkroom Voice:
Reviews of Figures for a Darkroom Voice
"Figures for a Darkroom Voice enacts the transformations that occur in the objects that exist in our world. For Gordon and Wilkinson, this change normally follows an eroding path—a stripping away either to the essential or to the garbage. In this way, their voice comes across not as a warning, but as an ominous knell."
—Full review in Interim (Vol.26, No.1&2, 2008) written by Jesse Peterson
"These aren't just two guys with three names each; these are two of the poets to watch in the next generation. Gordon just won the National Poetry Series Open (judged by the legendary John Ashbery) for his book Novel Pictorial Noise, and Wilkinson won the coveted Iowa Poetry Prize for his book Lug Your Careless Body Out of the Careful Dusk. Here the two have combined voices for a frisky, lithe, verbal romp. What started as an experiment in poetics, passing a pad of paper back and forth across a cafe table, ended as one of the most interesting books of last year. Think language poetry meets Project Runway. With whimsical drawings by Noah Saterstrom, and published by the always stellar Tarpaulin Sky Press."
—Powells.com Staff Pick: Alexis
Readings & events for Noah Eli Gordon & Joshua Marie Wilkinson & Figures for a Darkroom Voice
March 25, 2008, Washington, DC
DC Poetry
7:30 pm@ Bridge Street Books
2814 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
March 5, 2008, Ashland, OR
Emergent Forms: A 21st-Century Reading Series
7:00pm @ Meese Meeting Room #305
Hannon Library
Southern Oregon University
January 31, 2008: Brooklyn, NY
AWP OFF-SITE READING:
Lily Brown, Adam Clay, Julie Doxsee, Graham Foust, Melanie Hubbard, Rauan Klassnik, Joyelle McSweeney, Cindy Savett, Zachary Schomburg, Morgan Lucas Schuldt, Eleni Sikelianos, Jon Thompson, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Max Winter & CD Wright
Hosted by Black Ocean, Cannibal Books, Free Verse Editions, Kitchen Press, Octopus, Tarpaulin Sky Press, & Typo
7 -11 PM @
East Coast Aliens Studios
216 Franklin Street (Greenpoint neighborhood), Brooklyn, NY
$6
October 20, 2007: Ann Arbor, MI
with Selah Saterstrom
7 pm @ Shaman Drum Bookshop
October 14, 2007: Chicago, IL
7 pm @ Myopic Bookstore in Wicker Park
1564 N. Milwaukee Avenue,2nd Floor
October 13, 2007: Cincinnati, OH
with Joyelle McSweeney & Johannes Goransson
8 pm @ Publico
October 12, 2007: Oxford, OH
with Joyelle McSweeney & Johannes Goransson
8 pm @ Miami University
October 11, 2007: Buffalo, NY
Just Buffalo Series
7 pm @ Rust Belt Books
October 10, 2007: Oberlin, OH
4 pm @ Oberlin College
ALSO October 10, 2007: Cleveland, OH
7:30 pm @ Cleveland Poetry Center
Cleveland University
October 9, 2007: South Bend, IN
8 pm @ Notre Dame Campus
Hospitality Room, Reckers, South Dining Hall
October 8, 2007: Kalamazoo, MI
8 pm @ Western Michigan Univ.
Sprau Tower 10th Floor
October 7, 2007: Muncie, IN
7:30 pm @ the MT Cup
October 6, 2007: Athens, OH
House reading
October 5, 2007: Ft. Wayne, IN
with Joyelle McSweeney & Johannes Goransson
7:30 pm @ the Co-op
1612 Sherman Street
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