All of them?

I think everyone with the interwebs has heard about the Frosty manuscript and subsequent kerfuffle, but I always love Slate's little picture slideshows. Writers with ridiculous handwriting, par example.

I think if I had the patience or sticktoitiveness or whatever, I would totally be spending my days deciphering manuscripts. I'm caught between the technologies of handwriting and typing, as with most folks my age. Typographies can be beautiful, but not necessarily personal, though we try. For instance, Garamond is my font. It seemed like an implicit part of my workshop experience was discovering that fact. Every once in a while, I'll forget to default a poem to Garamond and it will end up in Times. It just feels...wrong.

I don't hand write that many poems, to be honest. I feel as though I should be a little ashamed of this. But I'm not. I do, however, journal extensively by hand, and my moleskine is mostly dominated by prose and personal reflection or - really - unbroken verse. I think I've become babied by the finality of a hard return, so when I try to feel my line breaks whilst writing by hand, my right pinky says no, see, there's nothing I can do for you here. It's all in the wrist. Typing, wrists are mostly stationary, floating, resigned to their immobility.

All this is to say that the physicality is such that I must versify with Mr. Qwerty or my pen. It's sort of like being ambidextrous, or in this case, not.

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but when I was learning French (about, er, six or so years ago), we had a culture lesson on handwriting analysis. Apparently, prospective employers expect(ed) one to submit a handwritten cover letter so they could tell what sort of bird/bloke you were from the way you swoop your Ys (I think very long tails on letters were supposed to be an indication of a healthy libido.)

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