January 19, 2005

Boise State's Ahsahta Press Announces Winner of Sawtooth Poetry Prize

Boise State University’s Ahsahta Press announces the publication of the winner of the third annual Sawtooth Poetry Prize, The Area of Sound Called the Subtone, a collection of poems by Noah Eli Gordon. Judge Claudia Rankine, author of Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, Plot and other poetry collections, selected the book. She is a professor at the University of Houston.   Of Gordon’s work, Rankine wrote, “The spray of intelligence that lingers in this reader’s mind is not much different from a cooling shower from an illegally opened fire hydrant.” This versatile collection contains three extended poems in musically charged language, beneath the surfaces of which are surprising investigations, meditations and play.   From a re-working of the double crown of sonnets in the book’s title poem through the expansive and strange prose-poetry of “Jaywalking the Is” and its eight dream sequences, which respond to the eight sections of Akira Kurosawa’s film Dreams, Gordon’s book is by turns exploratory and exhaustive.   Gordon was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975. He currently lives in Northampton, Mass., where he publishes the Braincase chapbook series. His first full-length book, The Frequencies, was published in 2003. As winner of the Sawtooth Poetry Prize he received $1,500 in addition to the publication of his book. The annual prize accepts entries from Jan. 1 to March 1 each year.   The Area of Sound Called the Subtone marks the 66th book from Ahsahta Press. Ahsahta, Mandan for “Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep,” has produced volumes by such poets as Charles O. Hartman, Liz Waldner, Graham Foust, Dan Beachy-Quick, Lisa Fishman, Linda Bierds and Sandra Alcosser.   The Area of Sound Called the Subtone is available from the Boise State Bookstore, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725; from Small Press Distribution (http://www.spdbooks.org); and directly from Ahsahta Press at http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu.   -30-   The Area of Sound Called the Subtone by Noah Eli Gordon ISBN 0-916272-81-8, paper 6" X 8" 124 pages $16.95   Contact: Janet Holmes, Ahsahta Press director, (208) 426-2195, jholmes@boisestate.edu Media Contact: Kathleen Craven, University Relations, (208) 426-3275, kcraven@boisestate.edu Release and photos online at: http://news.boisestate.edu