A Trip to Typewriter Town

American poet William Jay Smith learned to type at Brown's Business School in 1935 and later began playing with typewriter illustrations (often referred to as ascii art) to amuse his young children. In 1968 he was appointed the 19th Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress and wrote over ten collections of poetry, of which two went on to be nominated for the National Book Award. He published over twenty books of children's verse during his career, illustrated by many such distinguished artists as Caldecott winner Roger Duvoisin and AIGA medalist Ivan Chermayeff. In 1960 he wrote the children's book of verse, Typewriter Town, peppered with his own keyboarded typewriter illustrations. It is a visit to a world filled with monospaced glyphs and characters of every sort.   

::Images via Arthur Van Kruining's Flickrstream and the yhanblr tumblr.