Jerome Rothenberg's publishing career began in the late 1950s as a translator of German poetry, first for Hudson Review and then for City Lights Books. Founding Hawk's Well Press in 1959, Rothenberg used it as a venue to publish collections by some of the up-and-coming poets of the era, including Diane Wakoski and Robert Kelly. He also self-published his first book of poems, White Sun Black Sun, under the Hawk's Well imprint. From the beginning, his work embodied experimentation with syntax, image, and form that drew on varied influences and moved in diverse directions. Poetic and artistic forebears such as Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Dali, the Dadaists, Ezra Pound, and Walt Whitman affected the voice and content of his early work. In a career that has already spanned half a century, including seventy books of his own poetry, plus plays, acclaimed anthologies, and other works, Rothenberg has gone on to explore primitive and archaic poetry, sound poetry, found poetry, visual poetry, collaborations, further translations, his own Jewish heritage, and much more.

Born in Strasbourg, France, Pierre Joris is a poet, translator and essayist.

Pierre Joris is the author of over 40 books. As one of the foremost translators of avant-garde poetry into both French and English, he frequently explores the lesser-known works of both major and obscure experimental poets. His translations include Exile is My Trade: A Habib Tengour Reader (Black Widow Press, 2012); Paul Celan: Selections (University of California Press, 2005); 4X1: Works by Tristan Tzara, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jean-Pierre Duprey, and Habib Tengour (Inconundrum Press, 2003); and Pppppp: Kurt Schwitters Poems, Performance, Pieces, Proses, Plays, Poetics (Temple University Press, 1994). Of his translations of Paul Celan, poet Michael Palmer said: "Joris has dwelled during the better part of his life in Celan's words and silences…he has journeyed through the work's intricacies like very few others."

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