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Pierre Joris
Pierre Joris (born July 14, 1946) is a Luxembourgish-American poet, essayist, translator, and anthologist. He has moved between Europe, North Africa, and the United States for fifty-five years, publishing over eighty books of poetry, essays, translations and anthologies — most recently Interglacial Narrows (Poems 2015-2021) and Always the Many, Never the One: Conversations In-between, with Florent Toniello, both from Contra Mundum Press.[1] In 2020 his two final Paul Celan translations came out: Microliths They Are, Little Stones (Posthumous prose, from CMP) and The Collected Earlier Poetry (FSG). In 2019 Spuyten Duyvil Press published Arabia (not so) Deserta (essays on Maghrebi and Mashreqi literature and culture). Other recent books include: A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly (co-edited with P. Cockelbergh and J.Newberger, CMP, 2020); Adonis and Pierre Joris, Conversations in the Pyrenees (CMP 2018); Stations d'al-Hallaj (translated by Habib Tengour; Apic Editions, Algiers, 2018); The Book of U (poems, 2017, Editions Simoncini, Luxembourg). His translation of Egyptian poet Safaa Fathy's Revolution Goes Through Walls came out in 2018 from SplitLevel. In June 2016 the Théatre National du Luxembourg produced his play The Agony of I.B. (published by Editions PHI). Earlier publications include: An American Suite (early poems; inpatient press 2016); Barzakh: Poems 2000-2012 (Black Widow Press 2014); Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry of Paul Celan (FSG 2014); A Voice full of Cities: The Collected Essays of Robert Kelly (co-edited with Peter Cockelbergh; 2014, Contra Mundum Press) and The University of California Book of North African Literature (volume 4 in the Poems for the Millennium series, coedited with Habib Tengour, 2012). In 2011 Litteraria Pragensia, Charles University, Prague, published Pierre Joris: Cartographies of the In-between, edited by Peter Cockelbergh, with essays on Joris' work by, among others, Mohammed Bennis, Charles Bernstein, Nicole Brossard, Clayton Eshleman, Allen Fisher, Christine Hume, Robert Kelly, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Jennifer Moxley, Jean Portante, Carrie Noland, Alice Notley, Marjorie Perloff and Nicole Peyrafitte (2011). Other books include The Meridian: Final Version—Drafts—Materials by Paul Celan (Stanford U.P. 2011), Canto Diurno #4: The Tang Extending from the Blade, (poems, 2010), Justifying the Margins: Essays 1990-2006 (Salt Books), Aljibar I & II (poems) and the CD Routes, not Roots (with Munir Beken, oud; Mike Bisio, bass; Ben Chadabe, percussion; Mitch Elrod, guitar; Ta'wil Productions). Further translations include Paul Celan: Selections (UC Press) and Lightduress by Paul Celan which received the 2005 PEN Poetry Translation Award. With Jerome Rothenberg he edited Poems for the Millennium, vol. 1 & 2: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry. He is married to Nicole Peyrafitte. Biography
Early life and educationPierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946, was brought up in Luxembourg. Since age 18, he has moved between Europe, the United States and North Africa and holds both Luxembourger and American citizenship. After early studies in medicine in Paris, he decided to make poetry his career. In 1967 he moved to the US where he earned a BA (Honors) at Bard College before moving to New York City where he edited the underground arts magazine Corpus from 1969 to 1970. After moving to London, England in 1971, Joris founded the literary magazine Sixpack (with William Prescott) which published poetry and translations from the US, Europe and beyond, Between 1972 and 1975 Joris pursued graduate work, first in Cultural Studies at the University of London's Institute of United States Studies, and then at Essex University where he earned an MA in the Theory and Practice of Literary Translation in 1975. He published his first chapbook of poems The Fifth Season in 1972. CareerFrom 1976 to 1979 Joris taught in the English Department at the Université Constantine 1 in Algeria. He moved back to London in 1979, and in the early eighties taught in various institutions, such as the University of Maryland's UK campuses, while expanding his career as a freelance writer and translator, reviewing, for instance, for the New Statesman, and working as editor and writer for the weekly al-Zahaf al-Akhdar. Relocating to Paris, Joris started working as author, commentator, actor and editor for France Culture, the National French radio station. In 1987, invited by the Iowa International Writing Program to spend the fall in Iowa City, he used the occasion to relocate to the US. He first moved from Iowa to Binghamton, N.Y., where he started a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature he was to complete in 1990; from there he moved to San Diego where he was active as visiting poet in the University of California, San Diego Literature Department. Joris started to collaborate with poet and anthologist Jerome Rothenberg. In 1993 they co-edited and co-translated pppppp : THE SELECTED WRITINGS OF KURT SCHWITTERS (Temple University Press)[2] which received the 1994 Pen Center USA West Award for Translation, and the following year a Selected Poems of Pablo Picasso, under the title The Death of the Count of Orgaz & Other Writings. Joris and Rothenberg also began work on a two volume anthology of 20th Century Avant-Garde writings, POEMS FOR THE MILLENNIUM: A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BOOK OF MODERN & POSTMODERN POETRY, the first volume of which was published by UCP in 1995 and the second in 1998. In 1992 Joris returned to the Mid-Hudson valley to take up a teaching post in the Department of English at the University at Albany, SUNY, where he taught until his retirement in 2013. In 2009 he moved to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where he lives with his wife Nicole Peyrafitte, a performance artist, painter and singer. Peyrafitte has illustrated and created covers for most of Joris' books since 1992. They are involved in a series of collaborative performance actions[clarification needed] under the title "Domopoetics Karstic Actions."[3] Selected publicationsPoetryJoris has published over 30 books and chapbooks of his own poetry, among these :
Prose
Forthcoming :
Translations
Also noteworthy are his translations of Maurice Blanchot's The Unavowable Community and Edmond Jabès's From the Desert to the Book (Station Hill Press). As well as his numerous translations from English into French: Jack Kerouac's Mexico City Blues, but also Carl Solomon, Gregory Corso, Pete Townshend, Julian Beck, Sam Shepard and most recently "Hydrogen Jukebox" by Allen Ginsberg (Libretto for 2009 French premiere of Philip Glass' opera "Hydrogen Jukebox"). Miscellaneous:
Translations of Paul CelanJoris has translated all the poetry of Paul Celan (except for the very early and the Rumanian-language posthumously published poems) into English (the first three volumes published by Green Integer and Sun&Moon Press); a "Selections" edition of Celan; and most recently his "Meridian" speech with materials:
Anthologies
Edited Books
Collaborations with Jerome RothenbergWith Jerome Rothenberg he has published a two-volume anthology of 20th Century Avant-Garde writings, Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry, (University of California Press) the first volume of which received the 1996 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. Rothenberg's & Joris's previous collaboration, pppppp: Selected Writings of Kurt Schwitters (Temple University Press, 1993, reissued in 2002 by Exact Change) was awarded the 1994 PEN Center USA West Literary Award for Translation. Rothenberg & Joris also co-edited & co-translated The Burial of the Count of Orgaz & Other Writings of Pablo Picasso (Exact Change, 2004). Performance art, theater, and collaborationsAs reader and performance artist, Joris's work with performance artist / singer / painter Nicole Peyrafitte includes :
Other performances include:
On Pierre JorisAn issue of Samizdat commemorates the Joris/Rothenberg collaboration with original work and translations by both poets, and essays and poems for and about the poets. In 2011, Peter Cockelbergh edited a book on Joris entitled Pierre Joris--Cartographies of the In-between with essays by, among others, Mohammed Bennis, Charles Bernstein, Nicole Brossard, Clayton Eshleman, Allen Fisher, Christine Hume, Robert Kelly, Regina Keil-Sagawe, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Jennifer Moxley, Carrie Noland, Alice Notley, Marjorie Perloff & Nicole Peyrafitte (Litteraria Pragensia, Charles University, Prague, 2011). Samizdat # 7, edited by Robert Archambeau (winter 2001): Rothenberg and Joris: Poets for the Millennium.[5] Oasis #18 (published by Ian Robinson, London, 197?); new poems by PJ. Essays on P.J. by Eric Mottram, Clayton Eshleman, Robert Kelly. Interview of P.J. by Allen Fisher. Pierre Joris in translation
Personal lifeHe lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, multimedia performance artist and writer Nicole Peyrafitte. He has two sons, film director and writer Miles Joris-Peyrafitte[6] and film producer Joseph Mastantuono. References
External links
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