Diamonds: An Excerpt from Crystallography

by Christian Bök

Crystallography is the mineral science whose name means 'lucid writing.' Long out of print - but available once more in a revised edition - this remarkable work of avant-garde literature studies the border between science and poetry, and reveals that to write with clarity in either discipline involves the most intense thought, much in the manner of 'lucid dreaming.' This book shows that in the landscape of everyday language, poems represent crystalline formations.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2003

About the author

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.