Book(s) for sale

Craig Saper, ed., Words (2009). In January 1931, Bob Brown worked with Nancy Cunard's Hours Press to publish Words—two sets of poems printed in a single volume. The book was subtitled "I but bend my finger in a beckon and words, birds of words, hop on it, chirping." One set of poems was printed in 16-point Caslon Old Face, a classic font style used in all Hours Press publications. The other was relief-printed from engraved plates at less than 3-point size (perhaps, according to Cunard, less than 1-point). Because the subtitle was also printed in the microscopic text, archives, libraries, and bibliographies often mistakenly omit it.

Although Brown was, for Cunard, "at the very center of his time, a zeitgeist in himself," they printed only 150 copies, and the book passed into relative obscurity. It is generally mentioned only as a footnote in discussions of Cunard's life or in reference to Readies for Bob Brown's Machine, Brown’s better-known anthology of experimental texts by modernist writers, including Cunard herself. Over time, this experiment in blurring the distinction between text on the one hand and its design and presentation on the other has become a major prophetic work. Noted Brown scholar Craig Saper brings Words back to light, with a thorough explication of its meaning and role in literary history.

(Charles Bernstein's blog)

---

In the reading-machine future
Say by 1950
All magnum opuses
Will be etched on the
Heads of pins
Not retched into
Three volume classics
By pin heads.
—Bob Brown

One of the most important in the series of experimental texts written and published by Bob Brown in the early twentieth century, Words is among the very first literary works to anticipate the post-McLuhan melding of message and medium, with text being dramatically reshaped and even redefined by the myriad new ways people now deliver it to one another. Words is two sets of poems—one set in conventional type, the other set in 1-point type and requiring use of a magnifying glass—the sets of poems simultanously outstanding in their own right and part of a fascinating poetic commentary and dialog with one another.

Part of the thriving expatriate literary scene in 1930s Europe, and a friend and collaborator with Marcel Duchamp and other Surrealists and Dadaists, Brown predicted that technological progress would so dramatically change the world that the reading experience—and, for that matter, the very nature of text—would be completely changed by the devices and media through which we communicate written art and ideas to one another. At the time, Words and other Brown experiments seemed simple, playful, and largely pointless games. In retrospect, they are remarkable works of prophecy and commentary. Noted Brown expert Craig Saper’s afterword furnishes enlightening context to the republication of this prescient collection of poetry.

(Rice University Press website)