Poet by Default

By Tristan Corbière

• Description
• Bio

• ...I have the clearness of the moon,
  And for friends I have amorous vagabonds with no money.
  
  A limited-edition, hand-sewn collection of Noelle Kocot’s translations of some of the poems of Tristan Corbière. Made right here at Wave HQ, with love.
  
  SOLD OUT

• Tristan Corbière (1845-1875), was born in Coat-Congar, Ploujean, in northwest France. The young poet’s only book, Les Amours jaunes, was largely ignored until the Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine wrote about him a decade after his untimely death. Marked by his use of irony and a distinctive local idiom, Corbière’s work is a cornerstone of modern French poetry, and has been influential to English and American modernists such as Pound and Eliot.
  
  

  Noelle Kocot is the author of many collections of poetry, including Ascent of the Mothers (November 2023),  God's Green Earth (Wave Books, 2020), Phantom Pains of Madness (Wave Books, May 2016), Soul in Space (Wave Books, 2013), The Bigger World (Wave Books, 2011), and a book of translations of some of the poems of Tristan Corbière, Poet by Default (Wave Books, 2011). Their previous works include the discography Damon's Room, (Wave Books Pamphlet Series, 2010), Sunny Wednesday (Wave Books, 2009) and Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems (Wave Books, 2006). They are also the author of 4 and The Raving Fortune (both from Four Way Books). Their poems have been anthologized in Best American Poetry in 2001, 2012, and 2013. They are the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, The Fund for Poetry, the American Poetry Review, and a residency fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. Kocot has taught at the University of Texas New Writers' Project and currently teaches in the Creative Writing Department at the New School. They live in New Jersey.