My Works, Ye Mighty

My Works, Ye Mighty expands upon the conceptual literature of Christian Bök, particularly his ongoing project, entitled The Xenotext. Based upon work conducted during his tenure as the Writer-in-Residence at Athabasca University, this essay addresses the concept of “scale” in poetry, meditating on this topic with an abundance of imagery; moreover, his essay appears, alongside an epic poem, especially written by him for this publication.

About the Author

Christian Bök is the author of Eunoia (Coach House Books, 2001), a bestselling work of experimental literature that has won the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence (2002). Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994), his first book of poetry, has been nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award (1995). Nature has interviewed Bök about his work on The Xenotext (making him the first poet ever to appear in this famous journal of science). Bök has also exhibited artworks derived from The Xenotext at galleries around the world; moreover, his poem from this project has hitched a ride, as a digital payload, aboard a number of probes exploring the Solar System (including the InSight lander, now at Elysium Planitia on the surface of Mars). Bök is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and he teaches at Leeds Beckett University in the UK.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.