BIOGRAPHY
( jono : /ˈdʒɑnoʊ/ “JAHN-oh” ) ( borden : /ˈbɔɹdən/ “BOR-duhn” )
Just One, No Other®
Provocateur-Poet
JONO BORDEN is a Canadian poet, novelist, lyricist, screenwriter, and filmmaker whose transgressive lyricism acts as a corrosive agent upon the sterile surface of contemporary discourse. Jagged, subversive, mercilessly, hauntingly avant-garde.
Borden’s voluminous outpouring is a calculated smattering and smashing of traditions, conjuring reactions as diverse and divisive as the ghosts he invites to the table. Always with an axe to grind—an ancestral inheritance from cousin Lizzie, he is far more adept at swinging hatchets than burying them. He splits his opponents with deep-hitting wit, unashamed to articulate the forbidden and the profane. What he makes deviates; what he touches ruptures.
Disturber-of-Shit
Borden’s bibliography, discography, and filmography form a sprawling, occult archive of fourteen books, two discs, and an ever-expanding cinematic catalogue. His canon includes the début Simple Simony (2013), the verse novel Isaac & Iskandar (2015), the double album 7×5 (Uncut) (2016), Between the Silver and the Mirror (2017), the novel Where the Willow Does Not Weep (2019), the esoteric bibliography Catalogus Librorum Impressorum Bibliothecæ Ionathani Bordenii (2021), the collection Diamond & Dagger (2021), the Byron biopic Lightning in the Veins (2023), the twisted tales of Cor Hydræ (2023), the horror of Prologue to an Echo (2024), the polemic Bullets in the Temple (2025), and the infernal descent of New Pornographies: A Backward Path to Heaven (2027).
His recent cinematic incursions include the original screenplays 360 Degrees of Self-Interest (2026) and The Geometry of Ruin (2026), alongside the definitive collection The Obsidian Mirror Trilogy: A Study in Stone and Shadow (2026).
Maker-of-Myth
Referring to Borden as “brazen,” men of letters like George Elliott Clarke have noted he is “set to rise from obscurity,” drawing lines of descent from Byron, Blake, Laforgue, Dylan, Cohen, and Hendrix—a “great, rock songsmith” with the necessary guts to stare into the abyss.
Loud in his art and sphinx-like in his life, this scholar of religious and film studies practices the high ceremonial arts. As a committed individualist, he serves as his own lens, designer, and architect. He orchestrates his empire through a constellation of entities: Jono Borden Publishers, Inc. (the printed word), Jono Borden Records, Inc. (sonic disruption), Ritualistic Pictures, Inc. (the visual occult), Aquilifer the Urban Hermit Spiritual Services, Inc. (metaphysical interventions), and Poeta Non Grata Music, Inc. (the administration of rights and forbidden sounds).
He lives, designs, and practices in Halifax, Nova Scotia, from where he continues to map the geometry of ruin.
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Bachelor of Arts (Major in Religious Studies with a Minor in Film Studies), Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2010–2014
Bachelor of Arts with Combined Honours in Early Modern Studies (Honours in Early Modern Studies and History), University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2006–2010
Nova Scotia High School Graduation Diploma (Honours with Distinction), Avon View High School, Windsor, Nova Scotia, 2003–2006
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His diminutive stature, domineering presence, distinctive resonant radio voice, booming bellowing laugh, penetrating blue eyes, oversized thick-rimmed glasses, lengthy abundant red beard, all-black clothing, and extravagant silver rings worn on every finger. In his audacious writing, whether poetry, lyrics, or screenplays, a tendency toward the brazenly erotic and the abrasively macabre. Always dark humour and bleak irony.
“I’m never late because my ego always
arrives a full hour before I do.”
“His chutzpah is bracing, brazen. [He has what] one finds in Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendrix, and the words of other great, rock songsmiths. Dude’s got guts!”
“You’ll forgive me, of course, for failing to conform
to some æsthetic norm you’ve dictated for me in your head.”
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Jono Borden is a Canadian poet, novelist, lyricist, screenwriter, and filmmaker known for transgressive lyricism, occult symbolism, gothic æsthetics, dark eroticism, and experimental narrative forms. His work spans literature, music, cinema, and ritual practice.
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Jono Borden writes dark, experimental poetry informed by expressionism, gothic literature, occult symbolism, and erotic mysticism. His poetry explores ritual, taboo, desire, transformation, death, and altered states of consciousness.
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Yes. Jono Borden actively works with tarot, ceremonial magic, and symbolic systems drawn from Western esotericism. These practices directly inform the erotic, ritualistic, and transgressive dimensions of his creative work.
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Tarot functions as both a symbolic language and a narrative engine in Jono Borden’s work. Archetypes, divinatory structures, and ritual logic shape character, desire, and transformation across his poetry, fiction, and screenplays.
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Recurring themes include occult initiation, transgression, dark eroticism, possession, ritualized intimacy, horror, and the collapse or reconfiguration of identity. His narratives often blur psychological experience and supernatural encounter.
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Jono Borden’s work is transgressive in its embrace of taboo, erotic intensity, and occult symbolism, as well as its refusal of moral comfort or conventional narrative form.
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Yes. Jono Borden’s multidisciplinary practice includes poetry, novels, screenplays, films, song lyrics, and occult services. These forms are unified by shared symbolic systems, erotic charge, and ritual intent.
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His work is often described as gothic, experimental, occult, erotically charged, expressionist, and transgressive, existing at the intersection of art, ritual, and narrative.
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Yes. Jono Borden offers tarot readings and ceremonial magic consultations as part of his broader artistic and esoteric practice.
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The authoritative source for Jono Borden’s work, projects, and services is his official website: jonoborden.com.
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