Charles Bernstein writes in the introductory essay that "Figuring the Word" is a wide-ranging collections of Drucker's essays in which she "presents herself as a visual artist, a literary writer, a scholar/historian, and an aesthetician. In all these areas, Drucker has made substantial contributions. But it is her synthesis of these fields that is her most extrardinary achievement." Chapters of collected essays in the book include Writing as Artifact, including a section on hypergraphy and Maurice Lemaitre; Visual Poetics; Artists' Books Past and Future; The Future of Writing; Personal Writing. In the section "The Interior Eye: Performing the Visual Text," Drucker traces visual poetry in the perfomance work of Massin & Ionesco's "The Bald Soprano," Tzara's "Boxe," Marinetti's "At Night," Iliazd "Lendentua as Beacon," and Gomringer's "Ping Pong" and other icons of visual poetry.In the section, "Iliazd and the Book as a Form of Art," Drucker discusses and/or illustrates the following books held by the Sackner Archive: Ledentu as Beacon, Poesie de Mot Inconnu and Maximilana. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.