Prompt
after a poem by Allison Joseph
Write me a poem about
the manual typewriter,
the clip clop of fingers on keys,
the sleigh bell that rang when you
reached the end of the line. Tell me
about the carbon that smudged your fingers
when you untangled jangled keys.
Remember life before Word Count, when
a pencil mark reminded you to end the intro,
start paragraph one. The other marks
that kept you on the road, true to your outline.
The final streaks of graphite that said,
Wrap it up, tie it together, lead it into the barn.
Those days when cut and paste
involved scissors and Elmer’s glue.
When making a copy meant
two sheets of paper with a leaf
of inky black sandwiched between.
No delete key, no white-out, no search
and replace. So writing a paper
or a novel involved manual labor, fingers
dirty at the end of the day. Write me
about how your back ached. Tell me about
margins and tab sets. The silver levers,
the roller bars. Remember how faithful
it was, this coal black steed, the places
it took you to, far, far into the thicket of words.
And how it always brought you safely home again.
Write me a poem about
the manual typewriter,
the clip clop of fingers on keys,
the sleigh bell that rang when you
reached the end of the line. Tell me
about the carbon that smudged your fingers
when you untangled jangled keys.
Remember life before Word Count, when
a pencil mark reminded you to end the intro,
start paragraph one. The other marks
that kept you on the road, true to your outline.
The final streaks of graphite that said,
Wrap it up, tie it together, lead it into the barn.
Those days when cut and paste
involved scissors and Elmer’s glue.
When making a copy meant
two sheets of paper with a leaf
of inky black sandwiched between.
No delete key, no white-out, no search
and replace. So writing a paper
or a novel involved manual labor, fingers
dirty at the end of the day. Write me
about how your back ached. Tell me about
margins and tab sets. The silver levers,
the roller bars. Remember how faithful
it was, this coal black steed, the places
it took you to, far, far into the thicket of words.
And how it always brought you safely home again.
Barbara Crooker is the author of nine books of poetry, including Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series). Her work has appeared in many anthologies, including The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Commonwealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, The Poetry of Presence, and Nasty Women: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse.
This poem, “Prompt,” came from a prompt I was giving in a workshop. I was using a poem by Allison Joseph as an example, plus what I call my “postcard prompts,” which is a folder containing postcards, fronts of greeting cards, book announcement cards, etc. I deal them out like cards, hoping that the visual images will get something cooking. Learning to touch type in high school was probably more valuable than any of my AP courses, and my manual typewriter was my very best friend.
This poem, “Prompt,” came from a prompt I was giving in a workshop. I was using a poem by Allison Joseph as an example, plus what I call my “postcard prompts,” which is a folder containing postcards, fronts of greeting cards, book announcement cards, etc. I deal them out like cards, hoping that the visual images will get something cooking. Learning to touch type in high school was probably more valuable than any of my AP courses, and my manual typewriter was my very best friend.