Trance Archive: New and Selected Poems

Description

Since his post-9/11 essay "The Emergency," Andrew Joron has been regarded as one of American poetry's most profound practitioners. Trance Archive draws on over twenty years of Joron's work, from his early science fiction poetry to his later fusion of surrealist romanticism and avant-garde materialism, into what he calls "speculative lyric." Infused with radical politics, Joron's poetry takes inspiration from chaos and complexity theory, and reflects personal associations ranging from anarchist philosopher Paul Feyerabend to surrealist mystic Philip Lamantia. The third volume in our vbrant Spotlight series, Trance Archive affirms Joron's place among major contemporary poets.

Andrew Joron was raised in Stuttgart, Germany, Lowell, MA, and Missoula, MT. He studied under anarchist philosopher Paul Feyerabend at UC Berkeley, obtaining a BA in philosophy of science. Joron began writing science-fiction poetry before turning to surrealist-influenced lyric, reflecting his association with Philip Lamantia. His translations from German include philosopher Ernst Bloch's Literary Essays.

"Earlier in his career, Andrew Joron was known for writing poetry for science fiction magazines, finding ways to integrate poetic avant-garde techniques with the genre. 'Science Fiction' is perhaps his last collection that directly experiments with the genre before he began to focus on how poetics should be more involved with current political situations."-Cathy Park Hong "Joron's [prose poems] are characteristically impeccable, lapidary, sublime... Joron is among the most uncompromising, far-reaching, and underappreciated poets writing today."-Publishers Weekly "In just the fourth month of this new year, I can absolutely guarantee that this will be one of the most cherished books, most agile of lyric wonders, by the end of it." --Esther Press "An anthology of [Joron's] work from his best to his rarest, to others, anyone who wants an introduction to Joron's work would do well with Trance Archive, a top pick for poetry collections." --The Midwest Book Review "If the densely covered sheets of what I'm tempted to call [Alice] Notley's 'trance-scriptions'were reduced to their barest minimum, the distillate might be the kind of poem found in Andrew Joron's Trance Archive: New and Selected Poems." --The Nation "Joron is one of the few poets who has identified and embraced the possibility for surrealism and Language poetry to coexist in productive synergy... [He] pioneers a unique hybrid 'genre' of surrealism and science fiction ... Whether the surrealist project was abandoned ('destroyed') or never fully realized ('not-yet-invented'), Joron's work ambitiously attempts to resuscitate it by merging it with the 21st century version of Marxist poetry and making it relevant to post-structuralism." --The Poetry Blog "Joron's fascinations have itched and procreated through a poetic career, which Trance Archive celebrates. They are fascinating, entrancing."-- Poetry Flash