The poet's pen turns them to shapes

The Doctor and the Bard

Part of my day job is to evaluate school childrens' handwriting--to see if it's either too slow, illegible, or otherwise nonexistant, so as to warrant assistive technology. Usually, a specialized pencil grip or keyboarding practice is suggested. Ironic, then, that I have some of the worst handwriting  of any adult you will encounter. Sure, if I think about it and focus on making it legible, it looks fine, but why would I do that when 99% of my written communication is through a keyboard?

Even more ironic, then, that my father always writes in a precise, but not fastidious Copperplate at all times. He even has the artistic training and inclination to sweep out fanciful cursive scripts when the occasion calls for it. He loves computer gadgetry, but collects pens and writes all his notes by hand. And of course, he's a terrible hunt-and-peck typist.

So when the subject of cursive handwriting not being taught in schools anymore came up, we gently butted heads about the usefulness of handwriting in our modern era. Cursive was good enough for Shakespeare, right? Why isn't it good enough for me?

I learned cursive in school. My handwriting is much more legible in cursive than manuscript, but damn, does it cramp my hands after a paragraph. No wonder all these kids I see at work have issues. It takes more fine motor skills and muscles to create ink-on-paper words. Of course, if we had more practice, we'd be able to do it faster and with less pain. Practice is always the thing!

In school, I remember I'd be able to memorize things better if I wrote them down myself. Up until high school, when my computer fiend father inevitably got me a Palm Pilot and a portable keyboard, I wrote things out in longhand, and indeed, it helped my studying. But in college, when everything was done on my laptop in my dorm, typing was the only way to go. I still did fine in my studies, BTW.

But this past Christmas, when my dad gifted me a fanciful lined notebook of the type he was more apt to use on a regular basis, I wasn't sure what to do with it. I felt I should fill it with something worth the time and effort of carefully writing it in a legible hand. At that point, I was halfway through my Trippingly Project. What was more worthy of such a fine notebook than all the words I was burning into my brain every week?

Even now, I've only written eleven of the 40 speeches I've memorized into this notebook. It's hard, and takes concentration, because I can't fix it once it's set down. What pressure Shakespeare must have had to get it right the first time, what with how expensive paper and ink was in his time! I'm sure he made mistakes and added shit in the margins or deleted things with a scrawl. It's more visceral to see writing on paper; it's so much more permanent a record of a writer's thoughts and mental journeys. But damn, does it hurt.