{"id":15152,"date":"2017-02-16T09:27:59","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T13:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=15152"},"modified":"2017-02-16T09:27:59","modified_gmt":"2017-02-16T13:27:59","slug":"just-out-canto-diurno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/just-out-canto-diurno\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Out: “Canto Diurno”!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Canto Diurno<\/em>, my Selected Poems (1972-2012) in French (translations coordinated by Jean Portante) and with a foreword\u00a0by Charles Bernstein, was published this month by Le Castor Astral<\/a> in their “Les Passeurs d’Inuits” series. Many thanks to Jean Portante, Jean-Yves Reuzeau, Jacques Darras & Charles Bernstein for their invaluable contributions.<\/p>\n

Here, an extract of Charles Bernstein’s foreword:<\/p>\n

\n

Pierre Joris\u2019s Canto<\/i>s Diurno<\/i> are never solemn, but they acknowledge the \u201cdarkness that surrounds,\u201d as Robert Creeley once put it, that we are always behind our ideals, hopes, aspirations, premonitions, regrets, fears \u2013 behind<\/i> both in the sense of supporting and after<\/i>, trying to catch up, desperately for the most part, but in these poems not desperate but fortunate, in good humors and with humor.<\/p>\n

American poetry is born in second languages, it is our bounty and the secret of our success, if we have any, as much as Samson\u2019s long hair was, once upon a time, the source of his strength. That\u2019s why any attempt to homogenize and assimilate undermines the foundations of our poetics.<\/p>\n

Joris\u2019s work is marked by a rare virtue for an American poet: couragio<\/i>. Everybody is always talking about affect<\/i> but no one ever does anything about it. We used to say \u201clifts your spirits\u201d but that applies more to Thanksgiving balloons than to verse that challenges. I want a poetry, like this, that changes 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\u2019s not just the tyranny of monolingualism that Joris\u2019s verse contests, it’s the tyranny of all forms of monomania: single-mindedness in perspective, style, politics, form, language, identity, desire. \u201cI speak in voices \/ always always \/ other people’s voices \/ a thousand mouths.\u201d \u2014\u00a0We all turned away from virtues when that meant some uppity guy telling us the way we lead our lives is base. What happens if the base speaks in a basso profundo, as in being pro fun<\/i> with doing<\/i> more than the done<\/i>?\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Intellectus<\/i> is not a dirty word. While so much of American poetry culture has run from thick historical context and wit as if they were a European disease, Joris has made a poetry that overthrows the hierarchies but not the minding, tending, churning, plowing, fermenting, and fomenting.<\/p>\n

I want to claim Joris as an American poet par excellence, but that is only if we understand \u201cAmerican\u201d as dissolving into the \u201cimage nation\u201d (Robin Blaser\u2019s term) \u2013 \u201cthe city which is syntax\u201d \u2013\u2013 of non-national possibility. To be neither here nor there, French nor German, Luxembourgish nor Americanische, is to inhabit a provisionality among and between, a toggling that creates a space of rhythmic intensities (\u201ctrue movement unencumbered\u201d) that confounds binaries and repels axiomatic allegiances. (…)<\/p>\n

Joris\u2019s\u00a0 \u201cdaily song\u201d is a tracing of a definite but undefined course. The poet recognizes the necessity of a rhetorical address from \u201cthe center of my center of nowhere.\u201d No where<\/i> but still always here<\/i>, at this long-delayed hearing that determines neither guilt nor innocence but rather makes ways (makes waves) to actualize copability <\/i>(the ability to cope), which along with adaption, translation, miscegenation, and \u00e9lan is a guiding force of these beguiling works.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canto Diurno, my Selected Poems (1972-2012) in French (translations coordinated by Jean Portante) and with a foreword\u00a0by Charles Bernstein, was published this month by Le Castor Astral in their “Les Passeurs d’Inuits” series. Many...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,91,103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-launch-books","category-poetry","category-translation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15152"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15156,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15152\/revisions\/15156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}