Robert Bringhurst

Robert Bringhurst is a poet, typographer and linguist, well known for his award-winning translations of the Haida storytellers Skaay and Ghandl, and for his translations of the early Greek philosopher-poet Parmenides. His manual The Elements of Typographic Style has itself been translated into ten languages and is now one of the world’s most influential texts on typographic design. Among his most recent publications is a pair of essay collections, The Tree of Meaning (GP, 2006) and Everywhere Being is Dancing (GP, 2007). Bringhurst lives on Quadra Island, off the British Columbia coast.



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Everywhere Being is Dancing: Twenty Pieces of Thinking
Robert Bringhurst

2007 / Essays / $31.95
9781554470440 / Trade paper / 336 pp


In this companion volume to The Tree of Meaning (GP, 2006), Robert Bringhurst collects talks and meditations under the principle that “everything is related to everything else.” His studies of poetry, polyphonics, oral literature, storytelling, translation, mythology, homogeny, cultural ecology, literary criticism and typography all build upon this sense of basic connection.

Across the collection emerges a sustained interest in poetry—the existence of a poetry to which poems are answers, an examination of philosophy in poetry, the relationship between poetry and music, and the concept of polyphonics. Bringhurst’s thinking involves the work of poets, musicians and philosophers as varied as Ezra Pound, John Thompson, Don McKay, Empedokles, Parmenides, Aristotle, Skaay, Plato, George Clutesi, Elizabeth Nyman, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Dennis Lee and Glenn Gould.

The value Bringhurst places on translation—the process of, the dialogue between one language and another, and the sheer experience of witnessing translation by reading and hearing poems, stories and songs in their original languages—is another strong presence in this collection. Accompanying the English narrative are passages in Tlingit, Haida, Chinese, Greek, German, Cree and Russian, for readers who want to find the patterns and taste some of the vocabulary for themselves, for those interested in meeting the languages part way.

Winner of the 2008 Hubert Evans Noon-Fiction Prize.

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There is also a special edition of the book: 9781554470471

Other Books by this Author

Selected Poems
Robert Bringhurst

2009 / Poetry / $27.95 CAN
9781554470686 / Trade paper / 272 pp
Ursa Major
Robert Bringhurst

2009 / Poetry / $21.95 CAN
9781554470600 / Trade paper / 96 pp
The Tree of Meaning: Thirteen Talks
Robert Bringhurst

2008 / Essays / $31.95 CAN
9781554470242 / Trade paper / 320 pp
Everywhere Being is Dancing: Twenty Pieces of Thinking
Robert Bringhurst

2007 / Essays / $49.95 CAN
9781554470471 / Hardcover / 336 pp
The Tree of Meaning: Thirteen Talks
Robert Bringhurst

2007 / Essays / $49.95 CAN
9781554470259 / Hardcover / 320 pp
The Typographic Mind
Robert Bringhurst

2006 / Essay / $1.00 CAN
9781554470327 / Pamphlet / 8 pp
The Solid Form of Language
Robert Bringhurst

2004 / Essays / $19.95 CAN
9781894031882 / Trade paper / 80 pp
Ursa Major
Robert Bringhurst

2003 / Poetry / $21.95 CAN
9781894031660 / Trade paper / 96 pp

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