Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing and Visual Poetics

By Johanna Drucker

Johanna Drucker is among the foremost authorities on the history of alphabets, writing, artists' books and visual poetry. This book is a compendium of Drucker's thought. Yet rather than anthologize from her numerous published books, "Figuring the Word" collects writings only previously found in academic and literary journals, as well as transcriptions of her lectures and interviews. The book is divided into sections, each with several chapters, which include "Writing as Artifact," "Visual Poetics," "Artists' Books Past and Future" and "The Future of Writing." None of the work in "Figuring the Word" has ever been published in book form before, and yet it extends and reveals the already broad range of Drucker's voracious and penetrating intellect.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1887123237
• ISBN13: 9781887123235
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Granary Books
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Resource with A Personal Edge

Drucker is undeniably THE authority on how the visual word gets displayed and used within the book form today. Thus this collection of interviews, essays, poetic reflections, etc is broad-reaching in its reflections both on others work and her own origins as a poet and printbook-maker. It is a book which makes her reflections palpable, personable and inspires and invites the reader to participate in the process of asking "where now?" concerning our next step in Figuring the Word withing the book's frame. A great pair to her much headier, scholarly book The Visible Word.

Very Enjoyable

I really enjoyed these essays, which range from theory to personal reflection. When discussing specific projects that she has been involved with, it's fascinating they way you are drawn in to feel like you're seeing the behind-the-scenes of the creation process. The treatments of issues of theory were cogent, and well presented. I confess that I dog-eared many a page. The moments of personal reflection were at times almost too personal to bear...not what you might expect from a collection of essays, but welcome to this reader, nonetheless.