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 thatGrennan 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.
Following Vassar, Ball attended Columbia University, where he earned 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 fiction and poetry have appeared in many national journals, among them The New Republic, Circumference, Oberon, Agenda (UK), The Paris Review, Guernica Magazine, 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 The 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 his wife, the Icelandic poet, Thordis Bjornsdottir.
As well, the two collaborated on 2006's Og svo kom nóttin (And then comes night). Ball filled the book with drawings, Bjornsdottir with verse.
2007 saw the arrival of Samedi the Deafness, which was 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 Feltrinelli.
In Summer 2008, Ball's collection of short stories, Parables & Lies, was the first volume released by The Cupboard Pamphlet.
February 2009 saw the arrival of The Way Through Doors, which was published by the imprint Vintage. The book was written in June and July 2005, whereas Samedi the Deafness was written in October 2005.
The Way Through Doors (New York, NY: Vintage, 2009)
Novellas
Guernica Magazine, Pieter Emily (serialized in three parts)
2008
Books
Parables & Lies (Lincoln, NE: The Cupboard Pamphlet, 2007)
2007
Books
Samedi the Deafness (New York, NY: Vintage, 2007)
Anthologies
Poetry Daily Anthology "I Followed a Ribbon"
Stories
Denver Quarterly, "A Project"
Poems
Conduit, no. 17, "Autoptic 7" "Auturgy Refrain"
2006
Books
Vera & Linus. With Thórdís Björnsdóttir. (Reykjavík: Nyhil, 2006)
Og svo kom nóttin, Drawings. With Thórdís Björnsdóttir. (Reykjavík: Nyhil, 2006)
Anthologies
Best American Poetry 2006 (Scribner 2006): "Speech in a Chamber"
Stories
Purple Fiction. Spring 2006: "Samedi the Deafness Serialized Aserialized" (excerpt)
Conduit. no. 17, 2006: "Method for Waylayers Devised By L. For Practical Use"
Reykjavik Grapevine. Sept. 2006: 2.19.1 from Vera & Linus.
Poems
Denver Quarterly. 2006: "Missive in an Icelandic Room, 3"
2005
Anthologies
Af Ljodum, "Inside the Stove" (Nyhil 2005)
The Light of City and Sea, "Cares" "Cedar Hill" (Street Press 2005)
Poems
Denver Quarterly. 2005: "Asking Advice of the Scissors in its Small Drawer" "Balloon Diary, Week of the Pastoral Revolt" "The Distressing Effect of Rumors"
Paris Review. Issue 174, Summer 2005: "Speech in a Chamber" "Speech by a Window" "Autoptic 4" I followed A Ribbon" "Autoptic 8" "Parades"
Oberon. Vol. 3, 2005: "That Century" "A Calico Ascription" "Report from Our Lands" "A Turn"
Conduit. no. 16, 2005: "Morceau" "And if They Should Tell You"
Fence. 2005: "Missive in an Icelandic Room, 2"
2004
Books
March Book. Verse. (New York, NY: Grove Press, 2004)
