EXHALE

I tend to be a hand-writer because of my job as a grade school teacher, however, this  is changing by the year and with distance learning going on, I find myself writing less and less without the aid of a word processor.

I teach poetry for a three-week session each year, so I know the basics. This allows me to feel a certain level of confidence in the product, while others may feel a little less self-assured when it comes to handing over creative pieces like this. I did write notes in Word to start the process, but three or four sheets were wasted in the creation of this hand-written poem.

I think the fact that I had to restart was less to do with the content and more to do with squeezing in the text for a line in the space provided by an 8.5 x11 sheet of blank paper. I restarted three or four times because the word “motion “ at the end of the first line, kept getting jammed up or curled around or under. I think if I had had a problem later in the process I would not have restarted. “collective stupidity” did not fit , but it definitely didn’t force me to start again at that point. Too much was invested by then. This happens whenever I need to do a voice over for a slideshow. If I make a mistake and haven’t invested minutes into a recording, I’ll begin again. If the dog starts slurping water out of his bowl and a doorbell rings when I am two or three minutes into recording I will gladly leave it be. LI figure it is ike little margin notes of the digital age. I can only imagine what it must have felt like as a young monk starting out on your transcribing career and finding a mistake on the last line of a full page of handwritten text.

The biggest challenge I see  with hand written work is the ability to share your work easily. Although as I say this, I am realizing that I did share a photo of my poem on Instagram by taking a picture of it, so that argument is moot for the those of us living in this day and age.  The consistency and professionalism of words processed digitally can’t be overlooked, but I still think that handwriting will always have a personalized feel that you can not get from the typed word. Emotions are stronger in handwriting. I connect and offer up more energy when I read a handwritten note, because its very presence in this day and age is an anomaly.The fact that a person has taken the time to record something that is meaningful and therefore worth the time and effort to hand write says something. ALL CAPS may convey emotion, but it does not have as big an impact as a handwritten note. I also prefer hand writing, but I understand it is slowly fading away like the elevator operator and the stick shift. Just because things disappear, doesn’t mean they are not  valuable.

On a side note, the title is written with a set of potato stamps. I like arts and crafts, but I love poetry even more. My word had only one letter that is not perfectly symmetrical so that was a time saver. I only had to redo the “L”

Don’t tell anyone, but I hid little x’s all around the unfinished basement with the extra paint I had.