A BOOK OF THE BOOK
SOME WORKS & PROJECTIONS ABOUT THE BOOK & WRITING
edited by Jerome Rothenberg & Steven Clay

CONTENTS

Editors' Foreword xii

Pre-faces
Jerome Rothenberg / The Poetics & Ethnopoetics of the Book & Writing —7—
Steve Mccaffery and bpNichol / from "The Book as Machine" —17—
Karl Young / Notation and the Art of Reading —25—
William Everson / from "The Poem as Icon—Reflections on Printing as a Fine Art" —50—
Keith A. Smith / The Book as Physical Object —54—
Michael Davidson / The Material Page —71—
Anne Waldman / My Life a Book —80—
Jacques Derrida / Edmond Jabès and the Question of the Book —84—
Edmond Jabès / from Desire for a Beginning/Dread of One Single End —99—

The Opening of the Field
Gertrude Stein / Book —103—
William Blake / from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell —104—
David V. Erdman / from "Introduction" to The Illuminated Blake —107—
Walt Whitman / from "So Long" —112—
Susan Howe / These Flames and Generosities of the Heart: Emily Dickinson and the Illogic of Sumptuary Values —113—
Richard Sieburth / from Mallarmé's Le livre —132—
Maurice Blanchot / The Book to Come —141—
Marjorie Perloff / from The Futurist Moment —160—
Blaise Cendrars and Sonia Delaunay / La prose du transsibérien (facsimile and foldout) —167—
F.T.Marinetti / from Destruction of Syntax— Imagination Without Strings—Words-in-Freedom 1913 —178—
Gerald Janecek / from "Kruchonykh and the Manuscript Book" —186—
Velimir Khlebnikov / The One, the Only Book —201—
John Maizels / The Phenomenon of Adolf Wölfli —203—
André Breton / foreword to The Hundred Headless Woman by Max Ernst —213—
Max Ernst / from The Hundred Headless Woman —217—
Marcel Duchamp / Boîte-en-valise —221—
Agnès de la Beaumelle / Spells and Gris-Gris —222—
Antonin Artaud / Spell for Léon Fouks —226—
Jerome McGann / from "Composition as Explanation (of Modern and Postmodern Poetries)" —228—

The Book is as Old as Fire & Water
Nezahualcoyotl / The Painted Book —249—
Henry Munn / Writing in the Imagination of an Oral Poet —251—
Dennis Tedlock / Toward a Poetics of Polyphony and Translatability —257—
Nancy Munn / Guruwari Designs —279—
Cecilia Vicnña / Libro Desierto / Desert Book —286—
Jean François Billeter / from The Chinese Art of Writing —290—
Roland Barthes / The Written Face —311—
Toshi Ishihara and Linda Reinfeld / Hyakunin Isshu: Between Power and Play, an Anthology in Translation —313—
Martha L. Carothers / Novelty Books: Accent of Images and Words —319—
William J. Samarin / from Tongues of Men and Angels —334—
David Meltzer / Books Within Books: Some Notes on the Kabbalah & the Sefer Yetsirah —339—
Anonymous / from Sefer Yetsirah —341—
Jacques Gaffarel / Celestial Alphabet Event —345—
Marcel Griaule / from Conversations with Ogotemmêli —346—
Jorge Luis Borges / On the Cult of Books —347—
Walter D. Mignolo / from "Signs and Their Transmission: The Question of the Book in the New World² —351—

The Book To Come
Tom Phillips / from The Heart of A Humument —375—
Johanna Drucker / The Artist's Book as Idea and Form —376—
Dieter Roth / Introduction to Books and Graphics —389—
Richard Hamilton / The Books of Di[e]ter Rot[h] —395—
Alison Knowles / on The Book of Bean —399—
jess / O! —403—
Tom Phillips / Notes on A Humument —423—
Lawrence Upton / Writers Forum—Life by 1000 Books —431—
Simon Cutts / from A Smell of Printing —440—
Ian Tyson / Souvenir de voyage —441—
Allan Kaprow / Words: An Environment —445—
Thomas a. Vogler / When a Book is Not a Book —448—
Alec finlay / Afterword to Little Sparta —467—
Ian Hamilton Finlay / Robin Gillanders / from Little Sparta —470—
Carolee Schneemann / Up to and Including Her Limits —473—
Barbara Fahrner / Harriett Watts / Interpreting the "Kunstkammer" —476—
Dan Cameron / from "Living History: Faith Ringgold's Rendezvous With the Twentieth Century" —489—
Faith Ringgold / from The French Collection, Part 1, #3: The Picnic at Giverny —494—
John Cayley / Writing (Under-)Sky: On Xu Bing¹s Tianshu —497—
Charles Bernstein / The Art of Immemorability —504—

SOURCES & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS —519—
INDEX —523—

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