Powerful essays on the state and aims of contemporary poetry.

"Global anthology of twentieth-century poetry"--Back cover.

The first in a series of three books of Paul Celan published by Green Integer

Poasis, Joris's first major publication in the United States, highlights his work since the mid-1980s. Pierre Joris's poems are characterized by an arresting mix of passion and intellect, by what Pound called "language charged with meaning." For Joris, a language is always a second language, and his poetry takes as its main concern the question of marginality and exile. He is unique in being an American poet comfortable in three languages, and his work is filled with a dynamic language play, cross-linguistic puns, and themes of speculation on language, translation, and nomadism. Poasis, Joris's first major publication in the United States, highlights his work since the mid-1980s.

In this collection of essays, poet, translator, anthologist and critic Pierre Joris extends his "nomad poetics" to a remarkable zigzagging on the margins of twentieth and twenty-first century poetry and poetics. For Justifying the Margins refuses, precisely, to fill out spaces neatly to yield (to) straightened out, pre-set margins, be they cultural, literary, linguistic or political; Joris rather wanders through those spaces, and thereby "justifies" the margins properly speaking. His travel/travails set off with absorbing explorations of writing as such - traversing languages and crossing genres -, and seem to turn this collection into a marvelous group improvisation of texts, which range from journal entries, over lectures, essayistic writing, (auto)biographical notes, translation, obits and interview, to Joris's outstanding and characteristically intense readings. The author, moreover, brilliantly moves across - and vindicates - multiple fringes. Joris's observation with respect to French literature, for instance, namely that "the most interesting and explorative literary writing in French of the last fifty years has not come from Paris, but from the periphery of the old colonial empire," not only leads him to continually resurfacing meditations on North African and Arabic literature, or the rerouted Surrealism of Unica Zürn's anagrams, it also allows him to investigate the margins of English and American poetry, in Douglas Oliver and Ronald Johnson, or even to deftly (re)consider core figures such as Antonin Artaud, Charles Olson and Paul Celan - with, in turn, new offshoots in Jacques Derrida's pipe or Irving Petlin's paintings.A fascinating "travelogue," and a truly valuable read, Justifying the Margins is highly recommended to both the specialist and general reader interested in experimental art, thought, poetry and poetics!

"Global anthology of twentieth-century poetry"--Back cover.

"One of Paul Celan's most important books of poems, Threadsuns follows the Green Integer press publication of Breathturn, which received international critical acclaim. Consisting of 105 poems, arranged in five cycles, Threadsuns was composed between September 1965 and June 1967. If Breathturn was the opening gambit of Celan's "turn," the entry into the late work, then Threadsuns - the volume that may have received the least amount of commentary and analysis to date - may be said to be not only an extension or continuation of the previous volume, but the full-blown realization of Celan's late work."--BOOK JACKET.