Pierre Joris

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Pierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946 and raised in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, is a poet and translator. He left Luxembourg at nineteen and since then has lived in the US, Great Britain, North Africa and France. In 1992 he returned to the Mid-Hudson valley and teaches in the Department of English at University at Albany.

Contents

[edit] Selected publications

[edit] Poetry and translations

Joris has published over 20 books and chapbooks of his own poetry, among these :

  • Breccia: Selected Poems 1972-1986 (Editions PHI)
  • Poasis: Selected Poems 1986-1999 (Wesleyan University Press)
  • h.j.r. (EarthWind Press, Ann Arbor)
  • Winnetou Old (Meow Press, Buffalo, NY)
  • Turbulence (St. Lazaire Press, Rhinebeck)
  • Breccia, Selected Poems 1974-1986 (Editions PHI / Station Hill)
  • Aljibar (PHI, 2007), a bilingual edition with French translations by Eric Sarner.
  • Meditations on the Stations of Mansour Al-Hallaj (Anchorite Press)
  • Aljibar II (PHI, 2008), again a bilingual edition with French translations by Eric Sarner.

He has equally written and published many essays, introductions etc:

  • Wesleyan UP brought out a selection of essays under the title A Nomad Poetics in fall 2003.
  • SALT publishing brings out a selection of essays, called Justifying the Margins: Essays 1990-2006 in fall 2008.

Joris has also published a range of translations, both into English & into French, the most recent being :

Miscellaneous:

  • In 2007 his CD Routes, Not Roots appeared, with Munir Beken (oud), Michael Bisio (bass), Ben Chadabe (percussion) & Mitch Elrod (guitar).

[edit] Celan translations

Joris has translated three acclaimed works of poetry by Paul Celan into English (published by Green Integer and Sun&Moon Press); and most recently a "Selected" edition of Celan :

  • Paul Celan : Selections (University of California Press);
  • Lightduress (received the 2005 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation);
  • Threadsuns;
  • Breathturn (re-issued recently as a Green Integer book)

[edit] 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 recently co-edited & co-translated The Burial of the Count of Orgaz & Other Writings of Pablo Picasso (Exact Change, 2004).

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.

[edit] Performance art and collaboration

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:

  • 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.

[edit] External links

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