The Boise State Creative Writing Program joins the literary community in mourning the loss of celebrated poet and translator Pierre Joris, who passed away this week. Joris served as a Visiting Distinguished Writer in the Boise State Creative Writing MFA Program in 2016.
“Pierre Joris was not just a poet, a translator, or a teacher—he was a force of creativity who challenged the way we think about language and literature,” wrote the Hudson Valley Writer’s Guild on their website.
Born in Strasbourg, France, and raised in Luxembourg, Joris travelled extensively throughout his life. These experiences shaped his “’nomad poetics,’ a philosophy that embraced fluidity and rejected rigid boundaries,” wrote the Hudson Valley Writer’s Guild on their website. A poet, essayist and translator, Pierre Joris published over 50 books, including “An American Suite” (inpatient press 2016), “Barzakh: Poems 2000-2012” (Black Widow Press 2014), “Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry of Paul Celan” (FSG 2014). A translator of avant-garde poetry, Joris also worked to bring North African literature to a wider audience. Joris translated numerous authors into both English and French, including Tristan Tzara, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jean-Pierre Duprey, Habib Tengour, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Maurice Blanchot, and Edmund Jabès. He has published numerous translations of the work of Paul Celan.
“Joris’s work is marked by a rare virtue for an American poet: courage: fierce and loving,” wrote Charles Bernstein for an In Memoriam that appeared in b20. “I want a poetry and poetics, like Joris’s, that change my mind, puts me in the sway of currents of resistance and change. Where the courage is not just what is said but what is refused: the sanctity of the fixed place, nation or ideal, banner or standard. It’s not just the tyranny of monolingualism that Joris’s verse contests, it’s the tyranny of all forms of monomania: single-mindedness in perspective, style, politics, form, language, identity, desire.”