Andrew Joron (USA)
1955
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Equally inspired by surrealism and the science of nonlinear systems, Joron has sought to implement an "ontological turn" in poetic practice. In his essay "Language as Ghost Condensate," Joron argues that "poetic 'lines of force' point toward uninhabited wildernesses within language, toward removes of irreducible meaning––so that a poetic impulse will cause the system of language to exceed its own boundary conditions, and to undergo a phase transition toward the Unsayable."
BOOKS OF POETRY
Force Fields (Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont House, 1987); Science Fiction (Berkeley, California: Pantograph Press, 1992); The Removes (West Stockbridge, Massachusetts: Hard Press, 1999); Fathom (New York: Black Square Editions, 2003); The Sound Mirror (Flood Editions, 2008); Force Fields (with Brian Lucas) (Hooke Press, 2010; different from the previous title of the same name); Trance Archive: New and Selected Poems (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2010); The Absolute Letter (Flood Editions, 2017).
1955
Born in San Antonio, Texas in 1995, Andrew Joron grew up in Stuttgart, Germany; Lowell, Massachusetts; and Missoula, Montana. He attend the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in history and philosophy of science. After a decade and a half spent writing science-fiction poetry, culminating in his volume Science Fiction (Pantograph Press, 1992). After that, he turned to a more philosophical mode of speculative lyric. This work has been collected in The Removes (Hard Press, 1999), Fathom (Black Square Editions, 2003) and later publications.
Equally inspired by surrealism and the science of nonlinear systems, Joron has sought to implement an "ontological turn" in poetic practice. In his essay "Language as Ghost Condensate," Joron argues that "poetic 'lines of force' point toward uninhabited wildernesses within language, toward removes of irreducible meaning––so that a poetic impulse will cause the system of language to exceed its own boundary conditions, and to undergo a phase transition toward the Unsayable."
Joron has also written books of fiction and prose, including The Cry at Zero and O0 (2022).
He lives in Berkeley, where he worked as a freelance bibliographer and indexer and in 2014 joined the Creative Writing staff of San Francisco State University.
BOOKS OF POETRY
Force Fields (Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont House, 1987); Science Fiction (Berkeley, California: Pantograph Press, 1992); The Removes (West Stockbridge, Massachusetts: Hard Press, 1999); Fathom (New York: Black Square Editions, 2003); The Sound Mirror (Flood Editions, 2008); Force Fields (with Brian Lucas) (Hooke Press, 2010; different from the previous title of the same name); Trance Archive: New and Selected Poems (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2010); The Absolute Letter (Flood Editions, 2017).
For a selection of his poems, go here:
For a selection of audio readings by Andrew Joron, click below: