Meet the Artist: Linguist, Translator, Poet Robert Bringhurst

As the school year approaches, people are already marking their calendars for exciting performances, special events and lectures that are open to the public and taking place on college campuses throughout the Triad. Renowned typographer Robert Bringhurst is a linguist, translator, cultural historian, and one of Canada's most revered poets. His poetry has been described as “rare but not rarified”, and in his landmark book The Elements of Typographic Style, he's been said to “conjure poetry out of the smallest detail, from the humble hyphen to the nuances of serifs”. Last November he gave a fascinating lecture on the Wake Forest University campus titled The Biology of Symbols: How Pictures Became Letters that Became Text and are Sometimes Becoming Pictures Again. It was followed by a Q & A at Hanes Gallery, in the Scales Fine Arts Center. Both events were free and open to the public. He conducted his Q&A with David Ford via phone from his home in British Columbia.