Eunoia: Unquestionably Educational, Tenaciously Elocutionary

For the weekend, here's a little something "off-list;" an interesting and very unique book I read this week, Eunoia by Christian Bok. I first came across Christian while writing for WordFest a few years ago, and have been following him on Twitter ever since. Perhaps best described as an experimental poet, he’s published several books, and is well known in the literary community

here in Calgary.

While I was aware of the nature of his work, I had never read anything of his. A few months ago however, he had tweeted a link to an interview with Penn Jillette, who talked about Eunoia as one of the most influential books he’d ever read. Normally I wouldn’t be one to read a book because some celebrity recommended it, but the unique nature of this book made it hard to resist.

Eunoia is the shortest English word to contain all five vowels, and foreshadows the writing to come. Basically, there are five chapters, one for each vowel, and each containing words with ONLY that vowel.