An event, Jacques Derrida says, implies surprise, exposure, the unanticipatable (Derrida 2007: 441). In that sense, for most readers, Joris's poems are an event – a work whose form is likely to take readers by surprise, bringing to light startling associations and introducing perspectives one might not expect in relation with ecological disaster.

“The Gulf (Between You and Me)” by Pierre Joris deals with the aftermath of a disaster, which occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. In April 2010, a terrible explosion caused a huge conflagration on a BP oilrig, The Deepwater Horizon, in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven members of the rigging team were killed. The ensuing oil spill continued for almost three months and more than a thousand miles of coastline were fouled. This ecological disaster of unprecedented magnitude had an impact on almost every aspect of life in the region. Behind all the suffering and destruction loomed the question of cause and responsibility. Who should be made accountable? How could the accident have been prevented? In the months that followed the catastrophe, innumerable scientific and documentary reports were published and information was assembled for lawsuits against the big corporations, in particular British Petroleum.

The surge of response did not exclude communities of visual artists and musicians. In 2011, the Philadelphia-based chamber choir The Crossing decided on a musical creation on the subject, to be entitled “The Gulf (Between You and Me).” The conductor commissioned Pierre Joris to write three texts while he also asked three composers to create choral works based on these poems. The project, aimed to address the increasing gap between humans and the natural environment and to offer a response by art to a catastrophe, which, despite extensive coverage, still left many unanswered questions.

The challenge for the poet is to compose texts that, while relying on factual information, add dimensions of the event that can only be expressed through poetic, symbolic representation. The main question is not What do we know? but How do we know about disaster? What means does the poetic language have to make sense of a huge natural – human-made – catastrophe?

“The Gulf “: An Example of Nomadic Poetry

Under the general title, “The Gulf (Between You and Me)” Joris conceived a triptych, which consists of three quite loosely connected pieces and two intermezzi.