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

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. "A terrific book of poetry, let alone an astonishing first book," said Chicago Review of Rift, while Shearsman [UK] described Hymns & Qualms as "a masterpiece....Whatever the form, one thread flows through the whole, a master's control of the language." 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.

"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

"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