Pierre Joris

Pierre Joris (born July 14, 1946) is a Luxembourg-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 1915-2021) and Always the Many, Never the One: Conversations In-between, with Florent Toniello, both from Contra Mundum Press. 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).
Forthcoming are: Paul Celan's Todesfuge (Small Orange Import, 2023) and Diwan of Exiles: A Pierre Joris Reader (edited with Ariel Reznikoff, 2024).
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.
When not on the road, he lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with his wife, multimedia praticienne Nicole Peyrafitte.
Biography
Early life and education
Pierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946, was raised in Luxembourg. Since age 18, he has moved between Europe, the United States and North Africa and holds both Luxembourg and American citizenship.
After early studies in medicine in Paris, he decided to devote himself to literature, especially poetry, and to use English (his fourth language) as his writing language. 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 late 1971, Joris founded the literary magazine Sixpack (with William Prescott) which published a wide range of innovative poetries and translations from the US, Europe and beyond, and was instrumental in helping to create what came to be known as the British Poetry Revival of the 1970s. In 1975, Sixpack received a grant from the CCLM (Coordinating Council of Little Magazines) as well as that year's Fel's Literary Award.
Between 1972 and 1975 Joris pursued graduate work, first in Cultural Studies at the University of London's Institute of United States Studies under the direction of Professor Eric Mottram, and then at Essex University where he earned an MA in the Theory and Practice of Literary Translation in 1975 under the guidance of visiting American poet Ted Berrigan. It was also in London, in 1972, that he published his first chapbook of poems (The Fifth Season).
Career
From 1976 to 1979 Joris taught in the English Department at the Université Constantine 1 in Algeria, years that also led him to explore the wider Maghreb and especially the great Sahara desert. He moved back to London in 1979 & 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, for which publication he also briefly wrote a “Letter from Paris,” and working as editor and writer for the Third World weekly al-Zahaf al-Akhdar. Relocating to Paris, Joris started working as author, commentator, actor & editor for France Culture, the National French radio station. During those years he would return annually to the U.S. for poetry readings and work with various collaborators on a range of translation projects.
In 1987, invited by the Iowa International Writing Program (the first Luxemburger to be thus invited) 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 and would meet Nicole Peyrafitte. A range of projects got underway at this time: besides completing several collections of poems & a first volume of essays, Joris embarked on a very fruitful collaboration with poet and anthologist Jerome Rothenberg. In 1993 the pair co-edited and co-translated pppppp : THE SELECTED WRITINGS OF KURT SCHWITTERS (Temple University Press) 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 95 and the second in 98.
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 & singer. The pair continue to work together in a range of ways, including performances with jazz musicians & co-teaching, for example in the summer sessions at the Jack Kerouac Institute at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Nicole Peyrafitte has also illustrated and created covers for most of Joris' books since 1992. They are presently involved in a series of collaborative performance actions under the title "Domopoetics Karstic Actions."
Selected publications
Poetry
Joris has published over 30 books and chapbooks of his own poetry, among these :
Interglacial Narrows (Poems 1915-2021), Contra Mundum Press, 2023.
Meditations on the Stations of Mansur al-Hallaj, translated into Arabic by Safaa Fathy (Cairo, 2022).
Fox-trails, -tales & -trots (Poems & Proses) (Black Fountain Press, Luxembourg, 2020).
The Book of U — Le livre des cormorant (with Nicole Peyrafitte. Editions Simoncini, Luxembourg 2017).
An American Suite (Inpatient Press 2016).
Gulf Od Vraku K Pohromé (Czech translation, Prague, 2016).
Barzakh (Poems 2000-2012) (Black Widow Press 2014).
Maquif: Poemas y ensayos (Spanish Selected, La Otra, Mexico D.F., 2014).
Celebratory Talk-Essay on Receiving the Batty Weber Award (CNL, Literary Talks series 07).
Meditations on the Stations of Mansur al-Hallaj (Chax Press, 2013).
The Gulf (between you and me) (The Crossing, 2013).
learn the shadow (unit4art, 2012)
Canto Diurno #4: The Tang Extending from the Blade (ebook; 2010).
Aljibar II (PHI, 2008), again a bilingual edition with French translations by Eric Sarner.
Aljibar (PHI, 2007), a bilingual edition with French translations by Eric Sarner.
Routes, not Roots (Audio CD, 2007).
Meditations on the Stations of Mansur Al-Hallaj 1-20 (Chax Press, 2006).
The Rothenberg Variations (2004).
Fin de siècle-Phantombild; Ausgewählte Gedichte 1974-2000 (PHI, 2004).
Permanent Diaspora (2003)
Poasis: Selected Poems 1986-1999 (Wesleyan University Press, 2001).
h.j.r. (EarthWind Press, Ann Arbor, 1999).
out/takes (1999)
La dernière traversée de la manche (PHI, 1995)
Winnetou Old (Meow Press, Buffalo, NY, 1994).
Turbulence (St. Lazaire Press, Rhinebeck, 1991).
The Irritation Ditch (1991).
Janus (St. Lazaire Press, 1988).
Breccia: Selected Poems 1972-1986 (Editions PHI / Station Hill, 1987).
Net/Work (1983).
The Book of Luap Nalec (1982).
make it up like say (1982).
Tracing (1982).
The Broken Glass (1980).
Old Dog High Q (1980).
Body Count (1979).
The Tassili Connection (1978).
Tanith Flies (1978).
Hearth-Work (1977).
Antlers I-XI (1975).
A Single-minded Bestiary (1974; online reissue 2015).
Trance/Mutations (1972).
The Fifth Season (1971).
Prose
Always the Many, Never the One: Conversations In-between, with Florent Toniello (CMP 2022).
Arabia (Not So) Deserta (Essays on Maghrebi & Mashreqi Writing & Culture)Spuyten Duyvil 2019.
Adonis & Pierre Joris: Conversations in the Pyrenees, CMP 2019.
The Agony of I.B. (Theater, 2016).
Justifying the Margins: Essays 1990-2006 (Salt Publishing) 2009.
A Nomad Poetics (Wesleyan University Press) 2003.
Global Interference (1981).
The Book of Demons (with Victoria Hyatt, as Joseph W. Charles) (1975).
The Entropy Caper (radio play 1973).
Another Journey (1972).
Forthcoming :
Diwans of Exile: A Pierre Joris Reader (CMP 2024).
Against Tyranny: Selected Essays 1972-2018 (2024).
Paul Celan’s Todesfuge / Deathfugue (Small Orange Import 2023).
Translations
Rues du monde / Streets of the World by Anne Waldmann, translated by Pierre Joris and Nicole Peyrafitte with Eline Marx (Editions Apic, Algiers October 2023).
Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020).
Paul Celan, Microliths They Are, Little Stones (Posthumous prose) (Contra Mundum Press, 2020).
Revolution goes through Walls, by Safaa Fathy (SplitLevel Texts 2018).
Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry of Paul Celan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015)
Exile is my Trade. A Habib Tengour Reader (Black Widow Press, 2012).
Paul Celan. The Meridian. Final Version—Drafts—Materials (Stanford University Press, 2011).
Jukebox hydrogène de Allen Ginsberg (avec Nicole Peyrafitte 2008).
Paul Celan: Selections (2005).
Lightduress by Paul Celan (2005).
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and other Writings of Pablo Picasso (2004).
The Malady of Islam by Abdelwahab Meddeb (2003).
4x1: Translations of Tristan Tzara, Rilke, Jean-Pierre Duprey and Habib Tengour (Inconundrum Press, 2002).
Threadsuns by Paul Celan (2000)
Crystals to Aden by Michel Bulteau (2000)
Habib Tengour: Empedokles's Sandal (Duration Press, 1999).
Breathturn by Paul Celan (1995)
pppppp: The Selected Writings of Kurt Schwitters (1993)
From the Desert to the Book, Interviews with Edmond Jabès (1989)
The Unavowable Community by Maurice Blanchot (1988)
Lune faucon de Sam Shepard (1987)
Horse’s Neck de Pete Townshend (1986)
Motel Chronicles de Sam Shepard (1985)
Sentiments éligiaques américains de Gregory Corso (1977)
Mexico City Blues de Jack Kerouac (1977)
Temporal Flight by Jean-Pierre Duprey (1976)
Chants de la Révolution de Julian Beck (1975)
Contretemps à temps de Carl Solomon (1974)
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:
In 2007 his CD Routes, Not Roots appeared, with Munir Beken (oud), Michael Bisio (bass), Ben Chadabe (percussion) & Mitch Elrod (guitar).
Translations of Paul Celan
Joris 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:
Lightduress (received the 2005 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation)(o.p.);
Threadsuns; (o.p.);
Breathturn (o.p.);
Paul Celan: Selections;
The Meridian: Final Version - Drafts - Materials (Stanford University Press)
Breathturn into Timestead: The Complete Later Poetry of Paul Celan was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux on December 2, 2014.
Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux on November 24, 2020.
Paul Celan: Microliths (Posthumous prose) (Contra Mundum Press, 2020).
Anthologies
The University of California Book of North African Literature (vol. 4 in the Poems for the Millennium series), coedited with Habib Tengour (UCP, November 2012).
Poems for the Millennium (2 volumes: 1995 and 1998)
Joy! Praise! A Festschrift for Jerome Rothenberg (1991)
Poésie Internationale : Anthologie (with Jean Portante, 1987)
Joris's first anthology was the bi-lingual Matières d'Angleterre. Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie anglaise, co-edited with Paul Buck (Les Trois Cailloux, 1984).
Edited Books
A City Full of Voices: Essays on Robert Kelly, ed. by Pierre Joris with Peter Cockelbergh & Joel Newberger (Contra Mundum Press 2020).
A Voice Full of Cities: The Collected Essays of Robert Kelly, ed. by Pierre Joris & Peter Cockelbergh (Contra Mundum Press 2013).
Claude Pélieu: La Crevaille (Posthumous Writings of Claude Pélieu, transcribed & edited by Pierre Joris) Ressacs, Editions de l'Arganier, Paris (2008).
Paul Celan : Selections, Poets for the Millennium series, University of California Press 2005.
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and other Writings of Pablo Picasso (with Jerome Rothenberg), Exact Change, Boston, 2004.
pppppp : The Selected Writings of Kurt Schwitters (with Jerome Rothenberg), Temple University Press, 1993. Re-issued by Exact Change in 2002.
Joy! Praise! A Festschrift for Jerome Rothenberg on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, Ta'wil Books & Documents, Encinitas, 1991.
Collaborations with Jerome Rothenberg
With 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 collaborations
As reader and performance artist, Joris's work with performance artist / singer / painter Nicole Peyrafitte includes :
dePLACEments (premiered from 27 June to 2 July 2005 at Cave Poésie, Toulouse, France);
Manifesto&a (premiered in Luxembourg, July 1998);
Riding The Lines, (European Tour summer 1997; New York City performance at the Here Inn, Dec 1997).
Other performances include:
Domopoetics, a multimedia collaborative performance with Nicole Peyrafitte (since 2011).
Pierre's Words (Toward an Opera), a collaboration with composer Joel Chadabe & the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company (Premiered May 3, 1997, The Egg, Albany);
Frozen Shadows, a dance & reading performance based on Winnetou Old, choreographed by Ellen Sinopoli & danced by the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company (Union College, Schenectady, NY January 21, 1996 "The Egg," Albany, NY, April 12 & 13, 1995);
This Morning (part of Music Juggle) a multimedia collaboration with composer Xavier Chabot (Premiered at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY February 5, 1997. Chabot presented this work in Japan in late 1997.
Joris's play The Agony of I.B., was commissioned and produced in June 2016 by the Théatre National du Luxembourg. It also had a staged reading at Torn Page in New York on 8 February 2020.
On Pierre Joris
An 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.
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
Canto Diurno — Choix de poèmes 1972-2014. Avant-dire de Charles Bernstein. Traduit de l'anglais par Jean Portante avec Glenda George, Michel Maire, Didier Pemerle et la collaboration de l'auteur. (Le Castor Astral 2017).
Mawqif — Poemas y ensayos. Traducción y notas de Mario Domínguez Parra y Joseph Mulligan (Collection Temblor de cielo. LaOtra, Durango, Mexico, 2014).
Fin de siècle-Phantombild — Ausgewählte Gedichte 1974-2000. Aus dem Amerikanischen Englisch von Nico Helminger. Mit Illustrationen von Nicole Peyrafitte. (Editions PHI, 2004).
Personal life
He 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 and film producer Joseph Mastantuono.
References
External links
Rothenberg-Joris special issue of Samizdat
Two Poems by Pierre Joris @ Melancholia's Tremulous Dreadlocks
Pierre Joris on the book 'Heidegger and Fascism'
Interview with Pierre Joris
New Inquiry Interview
Pierre Joris' translations of poetry by Mostafa Nissaboury in New Poetry in Translation
Pierre Joris' translation of fiction by Abdallah Zrika in Words Without Borders
American male poets
French–English translators
American people of Luxembourgian descent
1946 births
Living people
Luxembourgian writers
Bard College alumni
State University of New York faculty
University at Albany, SUNY faculty
University of California, San Diego alumni
International Writing Program alumni
PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners
People from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Writers from Brooklyn
American writers in French
20th-century American writers
21st-century American writers