Elizabeth Floyd Mair of the Times Union interviews Pierre Joris (who visits Wed. 3/5 for 3 events):
Q: You write poetry in English, which — astonishingly — is not your first language, and you advocate moving away from "the prison-house of the mother-tongue" toward the "other tongue," or the recognition that "all languages are foreign." Can you tell me about this?
A: By luck of birth I come from a multilingual culture: Letzeburgesch [Editor's note: Letzeburgesch is a Germanic dialect widely spoken in Luxembourg] was spoken at home and in the street, but education was in German and French, and in high school I added English and Spanish as "foreign" languages.
More: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Poetic-provocateur-5274494.php
More about our Celebration of Pierre Joris this coming Wednesday: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/joris_pierre14.html
