Pierre Joris

Poet, Creative Nonfiction Writer, Translator

Brooklyn, NY
New York US
Email: 
pjoris@icloud.com
Website: 
pierrejoris.com/
Twitter/X: 
@pjoris

Author's Bio

Pierre Joris has moved between Europe, the US & North Africa for over half a century now, publishing more than 50 books of poetry, essays, translations & anthologies — most recently: Arabia (not so) Deserta (Essays; Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2019)  Adonis & Pierre Joris, Conversations in the Pyrenees (CMP 2018); a translation of Egyptian poet Safaa Fathy’s Revolution Goes Through Walls (SplitLevel, 2018), The Book of U /Le livre des cormorans (poems; with Nicole Peyrafitte, 2017); The Agony of I.B. (a play 2016); 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). Forthcoming are the two final volumes of his Paul Celan translations, Microliths (Posthumous prose) from CMP (2019) & The Collected Earlier Poetry (FSG 2020) & a Pierre Joris Reader (BWP, 2020). When not on the road, he lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with his wife, multimedia praticienne Nicole Peyrafitte.

Publications & Prizes

Creative Nonfiction

Books:
Arabia (not so) Deserta (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019)
,
Justifying the Margins (Salt Publishing, 2009)
,
A Nomad Poetics (Wesleyan University Press, 2003)

Poetry

Anthologies:
Paul Celan : Selections (University of California Press, 2005)
,
Threadsuns by Paul Celan (Sun & Moon Press, 2000)
,
Breathturn by Paul Celan (Sun & Moon Press, 1995)
,
Poems For The Millennium Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (University of California Press, 1995)
Books:
An American Suite (Early Poems) (Inpatient Press, 2016)
,
Barzakh: Poems 2000-2010 (Black Widow Press, 2014)
,
Meditations on the Stations of Mansur Al-Hallaj (Chax Press, 2013)
,
Lightduress by Paul Celan (Green Integer, 2004)
,
PABLO PICASSO: The Burial of the Count of Orgaz & Other Poems (Exact Change, 2004)
,
The Rothenberg Variations (Wild Honey Press, 2004)
,
Permanent Diaspora (Duration Press, 2003)
,
Poasis (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)
,
Breccia (Editions Phi/Station Hill, 1987)

Translation

Anthology:
4x1: Works by Rainer Maria Rilke, Tristan Tzara, Jean-Pierre Duprey & Habib Tengour, a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, Tristan Tzara, Jean-Pierre Duprey, Habib Tengour, translated from the French (Inconundrum Press, 2002)
Book:
Breathturn into Timestead by Paul Celan, translated from the German (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014)
Prizes won: 

2015 The ALTA (American Literary Translators Association) National Translation Award in Poetry for Breathturn into Timestead by Paul Celan 2013 The MLA Aldo & Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature. 2011 NEA Translation grant. 2005 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation 2003 Berlin Prize Fellowship, The American Academy in Berlin. 1999 NEA Translation grant. 1996 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (with Jerome Rothenberg). 1994 PEN Center USA West Award for Translation (with Jerome Rothenberg). Faculty Research Award Program grant, SUNY-Albany 1993 & 1997. Fonds Culturel National (Ministry of Culture, Luxembourg) writer's grant, 1987. Centre National des Lettres (France) translator's grant, 1983. The 1975 Fel's Literary Award (via CCLM) to the editors of SIXPACK. CCLM grant to SIXPACK magazine, 1975.

Watch

Listen

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors: 
Too numerous to name, but check out those I have translated: from German: Paul Celan; into French: Jerome Rothenberg, Robert Kelly, Clayton Eshleman, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Julian beck, Sam Shepard, etc. Into English: Tristan Tzara, Jean-Pierre Duprey, Rilke, Habib Tengour, Safaa Fathy, Edmond Jabès, Pablo Picasso, Kurt Schwitters, Maurice Blanchot, Abdelwahab Meddeb, etc. Check all the authors included in Jerome Rothenberg & my "Poems for the Millennium" anthologies: they are all favorites!
What I'm reading now: 
Gesamtausgabe — Die Gedichte by Paul Celan, Ananios of Kleitor by George Econou, Seaspel by Robert Kelly, First Mountain by Zhang Er, Lucretius: An Ontology of Motion by Thomas Nail, Poetics & Precarity by Myung Mi Kim & Cristanne Miller, Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer— A story of survival by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Hard Korè, Poèmes by Tracie Morris

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Prefers to work with: 
Any
Fluent in: 
French, German
Born in: 
Strasbourg
France
Raised in: 
Ettelbruck
Luxembourg
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: May 28, 2019