Editor’s Note by Kristina Marie Darling
I’m thrilled to introduce a mini-symposium on the life and work of Pierre Joris, a luminary within the fields of literary history, innovative poetics, translation, and transnational writing. This feature comes at a time when Joris’s work enters a new era of visibility. With the publication of two groundbreaking volumes–Poasis II: Selected Poems 2000-2024 from Wesleyan University Press, as well as The Pierre Joris Reader–and an exhibition of his notebooks at Poets House, his work is positioned for even greater recognition.
Allow me to share more information about this special exhibition from Poets House: “Through more than six decades of bound manuscripts, this exhibition charts the singular career and restless achievement of poet, translator, and editor Pierre Joris. Born in the immediate aftermath of World War II, on July 14, 1946, and raised in Luxembourg, Joris died a New Yorker in 2025. He “grew up dreaming of an American paradise,” as he described, through the rock and roll played on radio stations for American soldiers and from Hollywood films shown at his grandmother’s movie house in Ettelbruck. Joris was first compelled to a life in poetry after hearing the poems of Paul Celan in a German literature class in high school; he would go on to carry the fullness of Celan’s work into English through his unflinching translations. The exhibition provides an intimate portrait—across continents and languages—of one of the major international figures of contemporary and postmodern poetry.”
I’m honored to share the following tributes to Joris’s work from friends and colleagues on the occasion of this special exhibition at Poets House:
An Endless Drive with Celan: A Tribute to Pierre Joris by Sneha Chowdhury
At Poets House on Pierre’s 80th by Ariel Resnikoff
Readers can look forward to several events this fall to celebrate these new initiatives:
POETS HOUSE:
Guided Tour: Pierre Joris Notebooks w/ Nicole Peyrafitte
In-Person | Wed | Sep 30 | 6-7pm
Let a Thousand Translations Bloom: A Panel With Susan Bernofsky, Emma Ramadan and Mónica de la Torre
In-Person & Streaming on Zoom | Wed | Sep 30 | 7-9pm
Guided Tour: Pierre Joris Notebooks w/ Nicole Peyrafitte In-Person
Oct 17, 2026 | 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Poetry in the Space of the Notebook: A Panel With Anselm Berrigan, Emily Skillings, and Lynn Xu
Moderated by Poets House Library Director, John Vincler
Oct 17, 2026 | 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
WEST COAST:
A Tribute to the Life and Writing of Pierre Joris
Monday, December 14, 2026, 7:00 pm PST
Pierre Joris (1946–2025) was a Luxembourg-born poet, essayist, translator, anthologist, and scholar whose work moved across languages, cultures, and centuries of literary tradition. Over the course of five decades he published more than eighty books, including more than forty volumes of poetry. His writing—restless, exploratory, and deeply informed by global literary traditions—reflects a lifelong engagement with migration, translation, landscape, and history.
Among his most recent books are POASIS II (Wesleyan University Press, 2025) and A Pierre Joris Reader: In Between Keep Moving (Contra Mundum Press, 2026), both completed shortly before his passing. Earlier poetry collections include Interglacial Narrows (2022) and Fox-trails, -tails, & -trots: Poems & Proses (2020). His work has been translated into numerous languages, including French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Romanian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Georgian, and Chinese.
As a polyglot, Joris was widely praised for the extraordinary breadth of his knowledge of world literature and culture across centuries and traditions, a breadth that permeates his entire oeuvre as poet, translator, editor, essayist, scholar, and teacher.
Alongside his own writing, Joris made major contributions as a translator and editor. He is widely known for his translations of the poetry of Paul Celan, culminating in the volumes Memory Rose into Threshold Speech and Microliths They Are, Little Stones, completing his decades-long project of bringing Celan’s literary work into English. His translation work also extended across French, German, and Arabic, including authors such as Maurice Blanchot, Edmond Jabès, Habib Tengour, Anne Waldman, and Kurt Schwitters.
Joris also made significant contributions as an editor and anthologist. With Jerome Rothenberg he co-edited the influential anthology series Poems for the Millennium, published by University of California Press, widely regarded as a landmark collection of modern and postmodern poetry. He also co-edited The University of California Book of North African Literature with Habib Tengour and published extensively on poetics, translation, and literary history.
His literary achievements were recognized with numerous honors, including the Batty Weber Prize (2020), Luxembourg’s highest literary distinction, the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation (2021), the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation (2005), the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (1996), and the PEN Center USA West Award for Translation (1994). He also received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowship and the Berlin Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin.
Joris taught poetry and poetics for more than two decades at the University at Albany, where he mentored generations of poets, translators, and scholars. He gave readings and lectures internationally at major universities and cultural institutions across the United States, Europe, and North Africa. A poet of migration, language, and cultural crossing, Pierre Joris leaves a body of work of remarkable range that continues to illuminate the global dimensions of poetry and poetics.