Calligraphy Typewriters

Calligraphy Typewriters
Author: Larry Eigner
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2017-03-21
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0817358749

The first and only single-volume collection of Larry Eigner’s most significant poems, gathering in one place the most celebrated of the several thousand poems that constitute his remarkable life’s work Larry Eigner began writing poetry at age eight and was first published at age nine. Revered by poets and artists across a broad spectrum of generations and schools, Eigner’s remarkably moving poetry was created through enormous effort: because of severe physical disabilities, he produced his texts by typing with only one index finger and thumb on a 1940 Royal manual typewriter, creating a body of work that is unparalleled in its originality. Calligraphy Typewriters showcases the most celebrated of Eigner's several thousand poems, which are an important part of the Black Mountain/Projectivist movement that began in the 1950s and which remain a primary inspiration for many younger writers, including those in the Language movement that began in the 1970s. In its two sections—Swampscott and Berkeley, named for the two locales where Eigner lived and worked—the volume traces his fantastic perception of the ordinary and his zeal for language. Eigner’s use of visual space, metaphor, and description provide fascinating insights into both his own life and the world that surrounded him. This volume maintains the distinctive visual spacing of his original typescripts, reminders of his method, aesthetic sensibility, and creative ability to compose on the typewriter. A collection that reimagines the ordinary, Calligraphy Typewriters is the definitive selection of Eigner’s poems, and will serve well not only poets and students of poetry, but readers and writers of every vein.

Learn American Calligraphy

Learn American Calligraphy
Author: Margaret Shepherd
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2024-03-05
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1510777865

Take a visual trip around the United States, with stop-offs in many locations and insights on every page, and illuminate the past and future of American calligraphy. For centuries, American calligraphers have accepted the legacy of the classic Roman, Gothic, and Italic calligraphy they inherited from Europe without realizing that there are more alphabet treasures to be found in a larger pool of uniquely American alphabet designs. Wild West, New Deal, Prairie—all were made in America, and they express ideas that reveal national character. These styles come from here and nowhere else. Much like American music, language, fashion, and philosophy, calligraphy has matured, moved on from its origins, and become, in the words of the man who created Spencerian handwriting, “even more American.” Learn American Calligraphy is the latest book from Margaret Shepherd, author of one of the all-time bestselling books on calligraphy, Learn Calligraphy. This new book focuses on American calligraphy, which has its own identity, distinct from the alphabets inherited from Europe. As a lifelong calligrapher, Shepherd surveys the landscape of unique styles and describes how two dozen alphabets originated and what shaped them. Simple diagrams and exercises help you try out the styles for yourself. Some letters represent a region or a major era of art; some bear witness to social upheaval or culture change; many are accessible to beginners; and a few contradict the established view of American history.

The Chinese Typewriter

The Chinese Typewriter
Author: Thomas S. Mullaney
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 501
Release: 2018-10-09
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0262536102

How Chinese characters triumphed over the QWERTY keyboard and laid the foundation for China's information technology successes today. Chinese writing is character based, the one major world script that is neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Through the years, the Chinese written language encountered presumed alphabetic universalism in the form of Morse Code, Braille, stenography, Linotype, punch cards, word processing, and other systems developed with the Latin alphabet in mind. This book is about those encounters—in particular thousands of Chinese characters versus the typewriter and its QWERTY keyboard. Thomas Mullaney describes a fascinating series of experiments, prototypes, failures, and successes in the century-long quest for a workable Chinese typewriter. The earliest Chinese typewriters, Mullaney tells us, were figments of popular imagination, sensational accounts of twelve-foot keyboards with 5,000 keys. One of the first Chinese typewriters actually constructed was invented by a Christian missionary, who organized characters by common usage (but promoted the less-common characters for “Jesus" to the common usage level). Later came typewriters manufactured for use in Chinese offices, and typewriting schools that turned out trained “typewriter girls” and “typewriter boys.” Still later was the “Double Pigeon” typewriter produced by the Shanghai Calculator and Typewriter Factory, the typewriter of choice under Mao. Clerks and secretaries in this era experimented with alternative ways of organizing characters on their tray beds, inventing an input method that was the first instance of “predictive text.” Today, after more than a century of resistance against the alphabetic, not only have Chinese characters prevailed, they form the linguistic substrate of the vibrant world of Chinese information technology. The Chinese Typewriter, not just an “object history” but grappling with broad questions of technological change and global communication, shows how this happened. A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute Columbia University

The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist's Companion for the 21st Century

The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist's Companion for the 21st Century
Author: Richard Polt
Publisher: The Countryman Press
Total Pages: 641
Release: 2015-11-12
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN: 1581575874

The connoisseur's guide to the typewriter, entertaining and practical What do thousands of kids, makers, poets, artists, steampunks, hipsters, activists, and musicians have in common? They love typewriters—the magical, mechanical contraptions that are enjoying a surprising second life in the 21st century, striking a blow for self-reliance, privacy, and coherence against dependency, surveillance, and disintegration. The Typewriter Revolution documents the movement and provides practical advice on how to choose a typewriter, how to care for it, and what to do with it—from National Novel Writing Month to letter-writing socials, from type-ins to typewritten blogs, from custom-painted typewriters to typewriter tattoos. It celebrates the unique quality of everything typewriter, fully-illustrated with vintage photographs, postcards, manuals, and more.

Calligraphy For Dummies

Calligraphy For Dummies
Author: Jim Bennett
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2011-02-25
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1118051297

You’ve always admired beautiful calligraphy, but you probably figured it was way too hard to master, right ? Calligraphy is actually much easier than you ever dreamed. All you need is the right guide and you’ll be up to speed in no time! Calligraphy For Dummies lets anyone discover the art and fun of lettering. With this hands-on guide, you’ll be able to develop your craft and test it out in no time. Starting with the italic alphabet, you’ll discover different types of strokes, how to angle your pen, and how to join letters. This easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide shows you: All the tools you need to practice the craft Where to get the proper ink and paper How to master several alphabets Different variations to change the look of letters How to mix and match your alphabets How to create a poster, sign, or certificate Ways to design and letter a quotation Common mistakes that can easily be avoided Calligraphy For Dummies also provides tips on how to put your calligraphy skills to good use, with ideas for making money, adding flair to wedding invitations, and more! It also includes ten fun alphabets and practice pages to hone in on your talent, as well as examples of poorly formed letters to keep you on track. With a little practice, you’ll be creating stunning letters and experiencing the joys of writing calligraphy!

Momentous Inconclusions

Momentous Inconclusions
Author: Jennifer Bartlett
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2020
Genre: Poets, American
ISBN: 0826362117

The essays in this collection examine the breadth of Eigner's interests and influence, considering issues pertaining to ecopoetics, race and ethnicity, disability, technology, media, soundscapes, phenomenology, and popular culture.

The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting

The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting
Author: Anne Trubek
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2016-09-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1620402157

The future of handwriting is anything but certain. Its history, however, shows how much it has affected culture and civilization for millennia. In the digital age of instant communication, handwriting is less necessary than ever before, and indeed fewer and fewer schoolchildren are being taught how to write in cursive. Signatures--far from John Hancock’s elegant model--have become scrawls. In her recent and widely discussed and debated essays, Anne Trubek argues that the decline and even elimination of handwriting from daily life does not signal a decline in civilization, but rather the next stage in the evolution of communication. Now, in The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, Trubek uncovers the long and significant impact handwriting has had on culture and humanity--from the first recorded handwriting on the clay tablets of the Sumerians some four thousand years ago and the invention of the alphabet as we know it, to the rising value of handwritten manuscripts today. Each innovation over the millennia has threatened existing standards and entrenched interests: Indeed, in ancient Athens, Socrates and his followers decried the very use of handwriting, claiming memory would be destroyed; while Gutenberg’s printing press ultimately overturned the livelihood of the monks who created books in the pre-printing era. And yet new methods of writing and communication have always appeared. Establishing a novel link between our deep past and emerging future, Anne Trubek offers a colorful lens through which to view our shared social experience.

Finding the Weight of Things

Finding the Weight of Things
Author: George Hart
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2022-02-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0817321136

"A critical study of the poetry of Larry Eigner through the lens of both disability studies and ecopoetics, forming the basis of an "ecrippoetics.""--

Short Form American Poetry

Short Form American Poetry
Author: Montgomery Will Montgomery
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2020-06-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1474476406

A ground-breaking analysis of the short form lineage in twentieth-century American poetry Proposes a new genealogy of 20th century and contemporary American verse Contains in-depth discussion of key American poets and movements Will appeal to graduates and scholars in both the modernist and contemporary fieldsReading a century of American poetry through the prism of short form, this book analyses the centrality of an aesthetic of brevity to American modernist verse. It begins with Imagism and devotes chapters to William Carlos Williams, George Oppen, Lorine Niedecker, Robert Creeley, Larry Eigner, Robert Grenier and Rae Armantrout. Montgomery combines his larger argument, which takes issue with epic-driven narratives of Modernist poetry, with sensitive and original readings of numerous short and short-lined poems. Suggesting a reappraisal of key movements as objectivism, Black Mountain poetry and Language Writing, he opens new lines of discussion around the major poets of the period

Expanding Authorship

Expanding Authorship
Author: Peter Middleton
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0826362648

Expanding Authorship collects important essays by Peter Middleton that show the many ways in which, in a world of proliferating communications media, poetry-making is increasingly the work of agencies extending beyond that of a single, identifiable author. In four sections—Sound, Communities, Collaboration, and Complexity—Middleton demonstrates that this changing situation of poetry requires new understandings of the variations of authorship. He explores the internal divisions of lyric subjectivity, the vicissitudes of coauthorship and poetry networks, the creative role of editors and anthologists, and the ways in which the long poem can reveal the outer limits of authorship. Readers and scholars of Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, George Oppen, Frank O’Hara, Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, Jerome Rothenberg, Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian, Nathaniel Mackey, and Rae Armantrout will find much to learn and enjoy in this groundbreaking volume.