the way she wrote

I went to a poetry and fiction reading at Chatham University on Tuesday to hear the products of the chapbooks created by students in the MFA creative writing program. While listening to people read their works, I quickly got lost in the nervousness of the unestablished writers which added an element so real to their poetry.

 

Listening to poetry is quite different from reading it. Differently just as good.

 

I hate to admit it, but at every reading I’m immediately biased by the voice and the character of the reader. If they speak with a hard-edged sound or fail to project the poetic clarity that I hear in my head when I scan their words, I might end up getting better acquainted with the space of wall in front of me than their poem.

 

I’m working to get past this.

 

I ran into a writer who graduated with me from college last year. Both of us were in the writing program and we had been in classes together that involved us reading and critiquing each other’s creative essays very carefully.

 

It’s off-throwing to encounter a familiar face in an unexpected setting, but as her face came into focus, I realized that I knew her mostly by the way she wrote. I envisioned some vague stories about time she spent in Europe, but mostly I envisioned her writing style. She wrote in clipped sentences and phrases with humorous quips that led up to neatly boxed ending.

 

I decided this is a nice way to know someone.

some write their stories with ink

I’ve recently added a typewriter to my meager collection of writing-producing materials, which now includes a typewriter, a large pile of scrap paper, a box of pens and pencils that may or may not still contain ink or lead, and I suppose I must also include a computer.

When I began asking around for any people willing to donate me old manual typewriters, I received such questions as “What are you going to do with one of those things?”, “Are your fingers really that strong?”, and the infamous “Why do you need a typewriter when you have a computer?”

The answer to all these questions is easy: too many old things are much cooler than modern developments that have replaced them. A typewriter (especially for the dream-driven writer) is one of these things.

I’m indebted to Freecycle, my new favorite website, for directing typewriter-desiring me toward a friendly person who lives nearby and owned a manual typewriter that hadn’t felt a finger across its keys for 20 years. With a function as cool as it sounds, Freecycle joins together groups of people who like free things. Once you join a local group, you can easily post items that you’re looking to acquire or post things that you have and you don’t need and would prefer to donate to someone who will use it. I actually got so many typewriter offers that I had to sift through them. Freecycle has also been useful for providing my housemates with milkcrates and fabric scraps. It’s quite the website that can connect us in ways we would never find otherwise and give us the chance to share.

So now I spend rainy days sitting on my porch hammering down letters, making keystrokes loud enough for all the passersby to hear and give me a quick questioning glance, and watching each letter swing up and hit the paper as it slowly moves across. I’ve found the need to keep a pen nearby to cross out mistakes, but so far I’ve found my typewriter to be quite conducive to decent writing and good perspectives of the world.