Jono Borden

Jono Borden is a Canadian poet, novelist, lyricist, screenwriter, and filmmaker known for transgressive lyricism.

Borden’s voluminous outpouring is a smattering and smashing of many traditions, conjuring reactions as diverse and divisive as his influences.

Always with an axe to grind—and fitting, then, that Jono is cousin to Lizzie Borden, among other notable relations—better at swinging hatchets than burying them, splitting with deep-hitting wit his many opponents, Borden cultivates debate, unashamed to articulate what others are afraid to say. What he makes deviates.

Jono’s bibliography, discography, and filmography comprises eleven books, two discs, and one film, including his début poetry collection Simple Simony (2013), the verse novel Isaac & Iskandar: A Conquest in Verse (2015), the double album 7×5 (Uncut) (2016), his second poetry collection Between the Silver and the Mirror (2017), the novel Where the Willow Does Not Weep (2019), his occult library catalogue and esoteric bibliography Catalogus Librorum Impressorum Bibliothecæ Ionathani Bordenii (2021), his third poetry collection Diamond & Dagger (2021), his original screenplay for the Byron biopic Lightning in the Veins (2023), his first short story collection Cor Hydræ (Heart of the Snake): Twisted Tales (2023), his horror chapbook Prologue to an Echo: Seven Tales (2024), his fourth poetry collection Bullets in the Temple (To Open Closed Minds) (2025), and his fifth New Pornographies: A Backward Path to Heaven (2027).

Referring to Borden as “brazen,” men of letters as respected as George Elliott Clarke say he is “set to rise from obscurity,” comparing him to Byron, Blake, Laforgue, Dylan, Cohen, and Hendrix, another “great, rock songsmith,” noting, “Dude’s got guts!”

Loud in his art and quiet in his life, scholar of religious studies and film studies, Jono practices ceremonial magic.

Committed individualist, Borden takes his own portraits, designs his own graphics, heads Ritualistic Pictures, and lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.