Jesse Ball
Jesse Ball (born June 7, 1978) is an American writer. He has published volumes of poetry, short prose, and drawings. A novel is forthcoming in 2007.
Biography
Childhood
Jesse Ball was born on the north shore of Long Island, New York. His upbringing revolved around the reading of books, as his parents were serious scholars. The deaths of his brother, Abram (1998), and father, Robert (1996), may be felt in his work.
Education and Early Interests
After attending public school, Jesse Ball attended Vassar College, where he studied literature, and poetry writing under both Eamon Grennan and Paul Kane. He decided in part to attend Vassar after attending a lecture at Irish House in NYC that Grennan had given on Kavanaugh. At Vassar, he took many courses in religion, and participated in a program visiting Greenhaven Prison. At this time he also won a travel fellowship to do photography in India.
During [[college], Ball studied boxing and jeet kune do, and played rugby. His obsession with games led him to a serious study of [[chess]. During his years in [[New York City], he] was often to be found wagering, playing blitz chess on the streets, in Washington Square Park, Tompkins Square Park, and St. Nicholas Park.
Following Vassar, Ball attended Columbia University, where he gained an MFA and met the eminent poet Richard Howard. Howard was to help the then 24 year old poet publish his first volume, March Book, with Grove Press. At Columbia he worked with Lucie Brock-Broido, Liam Rector, Glyn Maxwell, Nicholas Christopher, Edward Hirsch, and Timothy Donnelly.
Career
Ball´s poetry has appeared in many national journals, among them The New Republic, Circumference, Oberon, Agenda (UK), The Paris Review, The Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence and Conduit. His writing is distinguished by an oblique address that is at once absurd and deeply serious, mordant and playful. In 2006, his poem, "Speech in a Chamber" was chosen for the anthology BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2006.
The 2004 volume March Book was hailed by Boston Review critic Desales Harrison as a splendid debut. "Ball displays an otherworldly virtuosity in rendering the uncanny."
That volume was followed by 2006´s Vera & Linus, a book of short-prose published in Iceland, but available both in Iceland and the US. Vera & Linus has been greeted enthusiastically by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. The book was written in collaboration with the Icelandic poet Thordis Bjornsdottir.
As well, the two collaborated on 2006´s Og svo kom nottin (And then comes night). Ball filled the book with drawings, Bjornsdottir, with verse.
2007 will see the arrival of Samedi the Deafness, which will be published by the imprint Vintage. The book was written while on the Hawthornden fellowship in Scotland. Samedi the Deafness is to be translated into Italian and published in Italy by the noted publisher Feltrinelli.
Private Life
Since graduating from Vassar College in 2000, Ball has lived in New York (Bedford-Stuyvesant, the East Village, Harlem, and Carroll Gardens), in Boston, (JP), in Santa Fe (La Cienega), in Reykjavik, Iceland, in Pau, France, in Midlothian, Scotland, and in Montpellier, France. He has held positions as various as being a tutor-to-delinquent-and-convalescent-children, a photographer, a black-jack dealer, and an editor. He currently resides in Reykjavik, Iceland with the poet Thordis Bjornsdottir (who he met while attending a poetry festival in Iceland in 2005).
Works
Poetry
- March Book (Grove 2004)
- Picnic in Ten Years´ Time (unpub.)
- Though I am Hated by All Birds (unpub.)
Short Prose
- Vera & Linus (Nyhil 2006)
- Scrip M (WMJJR 2007)
- Parables & Lies (unpub.)
- Amok Book (unpub.)
Drawings
- Og svo kom nottin (Nyhil 2006)
Fiction
- Samedi the Deafness (Vintage 2007)
- World´s Fair 7 June 1978 (unpub.)
- Pieter Emily (unpub.)
- The Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp & Carr (unpub.)
Children's
- The Pie Thief (unpub.)
- The Well (unpub.)
Figures of Influence
Ball´s reading focuses on work written before 1930. He makes a study of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, strategy and religion.
Topics
The Absurd
Ball´s work is known for its serious address of the absurd. His work is difficult to politicize, as it takes up the problem of existence, and takes issue with general conceptions of morality, prior to attending to the large scale relations of society.
External Links
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