Pierre Joris
Interglacial Narrows

Interglacial Narrows gathers a range of Pierre Joris’ poems written between 2015 and 2021, including an extended version of the Book of U / Le livre des cormorans by Joris and Nicole Peyrafitte, initially published by Galerie Simoncini in Luxembourg in 2017.

Both central to the book and opening up its time-lines is the section “Homage to P.C.” Put together in 2020 to celebrate Paul Celan’s 100th birth-year, it gathers poems the earliest of which dates from 1969 & the most recent from 23 November 2020, the day Celan would have turned 100 years old. All of these poems address the author’s relationship to the Bukovinian poet and his work. Core to this section is “The Book of Luap Nalec,” which dates from the later 70s, was published as a now lost chapbook in 1982, and included in Breccia (Editions PHI) in 1987.

The final section of the book is a diaristic sequence of poems & notes started during the spring of 2020, i.e. at the moment the covid-crisis hit NYC the hardest.