Susanne Jorn was born in Denmark in 1944. For several years she lived in France before graduating from Københavns Universitet with an M.A. in sinology. In 1971 she settled for a time in the United States, receiving her MA in American literature at Connecticut College and her PhD. at the University of Massachusetts.
Her first poetry collection, Splinterne (Splinters), was published in 1970 when she was studying in Japan for two years on a Mombusho scholarship. Since that publication she has gone on to publish several other volumes of poetry, as well as plays, essays and translations.
Influenced by members of the Cobra group, many of her collections are collaborations with painters such as Carl-Henning Pedersen, Pierre Alechinsky and her own father, the noted Danish artist Asgar Jorn (a member of the Cobra Group and a founding member of the Situationist International). She has also collaborated with the reknowned Japanese painter Yasse Tauchi. Her work has been further influenced by her studies in sinology and her many years living in Japan. Jorn integrates elements of the landscape from Chinese and Japanese into her work, and she was translated many poetry collections from those languages, including books by Yang Lian and Shuntaro Tanikawa. With John Caviglia, she also translated the poetry of the Peruvian poet, Cesar Vallejo.
Since 2000, when she returned from the US and Japan, Jorn has been living in Copenhagen.
BOOKS OF POETRY:
Splinterne (Copenhagen: Permild & Rosengreen,1970); Løsrivelser (Copenhagen: Selandia, 1972); Epigrammer (Copenhagen, 1977); Fiskeørn (Århus: Jorinde & Joringel, 1985); Det flydende liv (Copenhagen: Fremad, 1985); Sindbilleder (Copenhagen: Tiderne Skifter, 1986); Drømmehænder (Copenhagen: Per Kofod, 1991); Clairvoyant (Copenhagen: Per Kofod, 1994); To (Copenhagen: Politisk Revy, 1998); Nimbi (Copenhagen and New York: Politisk Revy and Spuyten Duyvil, 2001); Passionscyklus [with Hajime Kijima] (Odense: Adressens Forlag, 2004); Kokoro (Århus: Bogan, 2005)
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS:
Tracks in the Sand [in Japanese and English] (Reykjavik: Sigurjon Olafsson Museum, 1994); Nimbi [with Danish and English] (Copenhagen and New York: Politisk Revy and Spuyten Duyvil, 2001)
