Why does poetry matter? Although some may speak of the demise of poetry, what we’re seeing instead is a revitalization, which testifies to its ongoing urgency as an art. More than ever, we are in need of dialogue, of initiating new discussion, and of activating the language that poetry creates. The magazine Journal participates in this situation by placing poets of different languages in conversation through the space of the page. 

Edited by the poet and artist Jim Dine and poet and translator Vincent Broqua, Journal is a new poetry magazine that seeks to publish poets internationally. The Library is delighted to host the launch of the first issue, with contributions from sixteen authors who write (and translate) in different languages: from Brazilian Portuguese to Persan as well as French, English and Dutch. Celebrating a wide spectrum of voices who are political, lyrical, conceptual, visual, comic, and more, it represents the liveliness of poetry today with a renewed sense of its vitality.

Join contributors Jim Dine, Hugo Pernet, Ghazal Mosadeq, Elke de Rijcke, Vincent Broqua, and Dan Clarke for a reading and discussion of the need for poetry of the present. 

Journal publishes international poetry in translation or not. It seeks to further and invent conversations. The cover is by Daniel Clarke. 

This launch is organized in partnership with Double Change, the Franco-American poetry association.

Learn more:

Founded in 2000 in order to juxtapose, unite and reunite the poetries of France and the United States in a bi-national forum, Double Change looks to represent a diverse, eclectic spectrum of poetic activity in both countries. Discover their poets.

Famed artist and poet Jim Dine, editor and contributor to Journal, has had more than 300 solo exhibitions over his career, including retrospectives at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the New York MOMA. His work is in permanent collections including Metropolitan Museum of Art, the the Centre Pompidou, the National Gallery of Art, the Guggenheim, and the London Tate Gallery. Listen to Dine in conversation at the Morgan Library & Museum and read an interview in Forbes.

Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (the speakers will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.

Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.