The Robert Zend Website
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Picture

See more typescapes here:

Arbormundi: 16 Selected Typescapes
Versek, Kepversek: 15 more typescapes

"TYPE SCAPES: A Mystery Story"

Published in Exile: A Literary Quarterly, Volume 5, Numbers 3 & 4 
(Toronto: Exile Editions, 1978), pp. 127-176. Copyright © Janine Zend, all rights reserved, reproduced under license.

Download the full text here:
exile_-_typescapes.pdf
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Suggested donation $1-7:
Here is the mystery story of how my types scales were born. Creation is a mystery, and how I created my type scales is a story. I am very good at telling stories and solving mysteries. I think mystery, like life, is much overrated. What worries me most is that someday I will have to explain this to my smiling, vivacious, always inquiring daughter, Natalie.

Well, I could publish my type scapes without an explanatory text, but a little voice in my head protests against such a sterile idea: "People won't know what they are...how they were born...how they developed in the womb of your creative spirit...how they were conceived..." I argue, saying, finished products are what the public wants, but my voice reminds me: "Aren't you annoyed when your friends enshroud themselves in mystification, handing you their finished products? 

- Opening of "TYPE SCAPE: A Mystery Story"
[Zend's typescapes are] meticulous, superimposing shapes and figures in a way that hints at dimension and gives a sense of fluidity. The shapes he makes express texture while still appearing delicate, urging you to reach out and feel their dimensions before they float away or disappear. It’s just great art. Look for yourself!"
- Scott Beauchamp in "Zend and the Art of Typewriter Maintenance ," Full Stop: Reviews, Interview, Marginalia (9 May 2012)
The miracle of these concrete poems is that from what must have been a slow and painstaking process of planning and execution using paper inserted into a clunky machine come visions of airy lightness and delicate movement.

- Camille Martin, "Robert Zend's 'Typescapes': Concrete poetry from a Renaissance man of Canadian letters", Rogue Embryo, a.k.a. Camille Martin: a blog about poetry, collage, photography, whatnot, May 3 2012.

Some of the typescapes included in "TYPE SCAPES: A Mystery Story":

   Copyright © Janine Zend, 2014, all rights reserved.
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