Wednesday

Kenneth Irby was born in Bowie, Texas, in 1936, and grew up in Fort Scott, Kansas.  He was educated at the University of Kansas, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley.  He has lived, worked, served in the U. S. Army, and taught in New Mexico, Nevada, the North Pacific, Massachusetts, Northern California, New York, Colorado, and Copenhagen.  He currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and teaches in the Department of English at the University of Kansas.  Some recent books include In Denmark (in the second issue of No:  a journal of the arts, 2003); Studies (First Intensity Press, 2001); and Ridge to Ridge (OtherWind Press, 2001).  His The Intent On:  Collected Poems 1962-2006 was published by North Atlantic Books late in 2009. In April 2010 he was the co-recipient (with Eileen Myles) of the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America

Pierre Joris is a poet, translator, essayist & anthologist who has published over forty books, most recently Canto Diurno #4: The Tang Extending from the Blade, an 2010 Ahadada Books (ebook), Justifying the Margins: Essays 1990-2006 and Aljibar I & II (poems). Other recent publications include the CD Routes, not Roots and Meditations on the Stations of Mansour Al-Hallaj 1-21. Recent translations include Paul Celan: Selections, and  Lightduress by Paul Celan, which received the 2005 PEN Poetry Translation Award. With Jerome Rothenberg he edited the award-winning anthologies Poems for the Millennium (volumes I & II). He teaches at the University of Albany, SUNY. Check out his website & his Nomadics blog.