Graphologists say handwriting is not really HANDwriting but BRAINwriting. Your handwriting is individual to you, to your mind and personality. Your poems are brainwriting too, in another sense. Is it interesting to bring the two together? I’m always intrigued to hear recordings of authors reading their own work. Does handwriting, similarly, add another dimension to poetry on the page?
Some examples of famous poets in manuscript:
Keats: Lamia:
http://englishhistory.net/marilee/lamiamanuscript.jpg
Wilfred Owen: Dulce et Decorum Est
http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/images/...ascS/f318v.jpg
Poe:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/textarchive/rare/76a.gif
Hardy:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/images/vc206ap1.jpg
Frost: "Stopping by Woods..."
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/images/vc195c.jpg
Yeats: Wild Swans
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~bushne...als/yeats1.jpg
Eliot:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/images/vc207a.jpg
Auden: Musee...
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/images/vc209.jpg
It’s a pity poets seldom go through the manuscript phase these days. I thought it would make an interesting exercise, combining poetry and art elements, to produce a “fair copy” manuscript poem (preferably your own) and show the image here.
So — write one of your poems out (maybe a short one) in your handwriting, then scan it into your computer, make a jpg file, and post it here. (Scan it for screen display, not print, or you’ll have to resize it to fit here.)
Winner by popular vote?
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