A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent
Stuart Ross
May 2016
68 pages | ISBN 978-1-928088-11-0
**Winner of the Kitty Lewis Hazel Millar Dennis Tourbin Poetry Prize**
**Winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry 2017**
Stuart Ross is known as the author of some of Canada’s most audacious poetry. Long celebrated for his absurdist narratives and gut-punch humour, in A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent Ross confronts more intimate subject matter – investigating the often complex but always powerful connections between loved ones. Surreally punctuated portraits of family members, childhood friends, heroes, mentors – and even himself – are rendered with arresting care. From the cemetery to the playground, and from the punk club to the synagogue, Ross takes his readers on adventures both wild and tender.
Reviews | Interviews | Videos | Excerpt | About the Author
Reviews
Book Review I - A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (Ross Belot, Poet Ross In California, 05/22/2017)
"Skillfully written poetry, literary depth and an adventurous movement through form and subject. Quirky, personal with just the right amount of accessibility. A great book."
Stuart Ross wins IFOA's Battle of the Bards (Susan G. Cole, Now Magazine, 30/03/2017)
"Ross, reading poems packed with memories of his childhood in Downsview, spoken in the voice of a young boy – was wholly delightful and he was definitely among the most compelling poets to hit the stage."
A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent by Stuart Ross (Toronto Star, 01/08/2017)
"Stuart Ross has been publishing his irreverent poems of surrealist comedy for almost 40 years. This latest collection contains plenty of his trademark wackiness ('When facts were called for, I invented them' describes his approach in a nutshell). But there's also a touching current of angst about mortality, loss and the fleeting nature of what we hold most dear."
Hungarian folk art inspires collection (Jonathan Ball, Winnipeg Free Press, 25/06/2016)
"[A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent] captures one of Canada’s most inventive and overlooked poets in fine form.... This is Ross’s oft-utilized but never-predictable method: to combine an observation that seems tossed-off and un-poetic with a harrowing image or something more complex than it at first appears."
Stuart Ross, A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (rob mclennan, rob mclennan's blog, 15/08/2016)
"Predominantly composed in Ross’ comfortable, comforting first-person vernacular, one can easily hear Ross’ voice speak through stories of reading, family, friends and writing, as well as meditative stretches around history, sunny stretches, language and the occasional pun, all rife with his familiar neuroses, complains and concerns, and a dry, absurd humour. One might say that this collection of lyrically-dense and thoughtful poems is entirely classic Stuart Ross, and one of his strongest collections, at that."
Two 2016 Buckrider Titles (Catherine Owen, Marrow Reviews, 06/08/2016)
"I’ve read Stuart Ross for years and been impressed by his vigorously energetic surrealism while at times perplexed by his resistance to closure, in an aural if not content-based sense. But I’ve not truly been moved by his poems in the way a wide range of the pieces in his latest, A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent stirred me. Ross is taking emotive risks in a way he hasn’t as readily in the past (age? life experiences?) and the result is much more satisfying poetically."
Interviews
"HOWL interview with Stuart Ross" (CIUT 89.5FM, 08/16/2013)
"The Entitled Interview with Stuart Ross" (Open Book Toronto, 05/28/2016)
"Stuart tells us about how A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent got its name and why it is has a different aesthetic from many of his past titles, as well as his all-time favourite titles."
Excerpt
A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent Sample
About the Author
Stuart Ross published his first literary pamphlet on the photocopier in his dad’s office one night in 1979. Through the 1980s, he stood on Toronto’s Yonge Street wearing signs like “Writer Going to Hell,” selling over seven thousand chapbooks. He is the author or co-author of twenty books of fiction, poetry and essays, as well as scores of chapbooks, leaflets and broadsides. Stuart was a member of the short-lived improvisational noise trio Donkey Lopez, whose CDs include Juan Lonely Night and the someday-to-be-released Working Class Burro. He is a founding member of the Meet the Presses collective and has his own imprint, a stuart ross book, at Mansfield Press. Stuart lives in Cobourg, Ontario, and blogs at bloggamooga.blogspot.ca.
