Author: Pierre Joris

Allen Fisher's Place

Finally out! The complete one-volume edition of Allen Fisher’s first long poem Place arrived in the mail from Reality Street Editions (http://freespace.virgin.net/reality.street/). Witnessing the elaboration of Place during the seventies in London was a founding experience for my own poetics. Thirty years later the poem still stands as a core marker of the New British poetry. A psychotopography of South London as only Blake had managed to draw in … Read more Allen Fisher's Place

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Paul Ricoeur dies at 92

Though I didn’t follow his work that closely anymore, news of his passing immediately brings to mind London days in the early seventies, reading The Rule of Metaphor and the discussions that followed with Allen Fisher. Then in the eighties, long night talks in Paris with Douglas Oliver on Ricoeur’s volumes on narrative (as Doug was reformulating his poetcis toward encompassing narrative structures — rewriting The Pearl poem as … Read more Paul Ricoeur dies at 92

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Abdellatif Laâbi's Poem for Florence Aubenas

On 5 January 2005 Florence Aubenas, a French journalist, and her Iraqi guide Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi were abducted in Baghdad. They are still being detained by unknown captors, though 2 videos have surfaced on which Aubenas is seen forced to recite a prewritten text. A few days ago the Moroccan poet Abdellatif Laâbi (who himself was jailed from 1972 to 1980 in Morocco for political reasons) published the following … Read more Abdellatif Laâbi's Poem for Florence Aubenas

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Welcome

The desire to do a blog has been with me for some time now. The time to do so not, however. Now, with a sabbatical in front of me, that time may have arrived. We’ll see: no promises. This is an essay, literally, a try. Some of what went into the notebooks to emerge — maybe, at times, much later or never, much altered or not — will now … Read more Welcome

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