Novel Pictorial Noise

Noah Eli Gordon’s poems take the form of jotted notes in an artist’s notebook (I was reminded in particular of Odilon Redon’s). Each day one begins anew to weave the web, having moved a step forward (or sometimes backward) since yesterday’s attempt. Thus each prose bloc, modified or modulated by the ghostly fragments that interleave them, sharpens the focus by which he “attempt[s] via the unknown to give grammar a purpose.” The effort in itself is its own reward, and a prodigal one. - John Ashbery