Margins
Crystallography book cover
Crystallography
1994
First Published
4.26
Average Rating
132
Number of Pages
Published in 1994, Crystallography was a gem of a book, an instant hit that was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award. It has been unavailable for an ice age, and Coach House Books is proud to bring it back. 'Crystallography' means the study of crystals, but also, taken literally, 'lucid writing.' The book exists in the intersection of poetry and science, exploring the relationship between language and crystals - looking at language as a crystal, a space in which the chaos of individual parts align to expose a perfect formation of structure. As Bök himself says, 'a word is a bit of crystal in formation,' suggesting there is a space in which words, like crystals, can resonate pure form. Lucid, sparkling, a diamond of a book: Crystallography is a crystal-clear approach to the science of poetry from the author of Eunoia .
Avg Rating
4.26
Number of Ratings
396
5 STARS
51%
4 STARS
32%
3 STARS
11%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads

Author

Christian Bok
Christian Bok
Author · 5 books

Christian Bök (born Christian Book) is a Canadian experimental poet. He began writing seriously in his early twenties, while earning his B.A. and M.A. degrees at Carleton University in Ottawa. He returned to Toronto in the early 1990s to study for a Ph.D. in English literature at York University, where he encountered a burgeoning literary community that included Steve McCaffery, Christopher Dewdney, and Darren Wershler-Henry. In addtion to his poetry, Bök has created conceptual art, making artist's books from Rubik's cubes and Lego bricks. He has also worked in science-fiction television by designing artificial languages for Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict and Peter Benchley's Amazon. As of 2005, he teaches at the University of Calgary.

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