A. Poetry. Critic.

A poetry critic reads a bunch of chapbooks all at once, and discovers that books, OMG, have designers. Writing in this week's Contant Critic, Joyelle McSweeney clarifies a previous review of a chapbook based on a discussion with the book's designer:

In preparing my review of Yunte Huang's Cribs last month, I went out of my way to consider the book's layout and non-verbal textual markings in developing a reading of the book as a whole. I credited Huang-the-author for the distinctive irregular stripes running up and down the book's pages, along and amid the words. Since the review appeared, communication with Huang and with Tinfish editor Susan Schultz revealed to me that these non-verbal elements of Cribs were in fact the invention of Kristina Bell, the book's designer.

I stand by my reading of Cribs, but I wonder why, with Bell's credit in the book's interior, I was still unable to 'see' her contribution for what it was, even while I was preoccupied with 'seeing' it on the pages. I'm particularly struck by my failure to see because, as the editor of my own new press, I've learned that a designer's selection of typeface and layout becomes the first interpretation of the poem, the medium through which the book's readers encounter that (perhaps?) immaterial entity, the poem itself.

Assorted Chapbooks reviewed by Joyelle McSweeney

Turns out even critics know a "McSweeney's-esque typeface" [that would be, what?, Garamond?] when they see it.