Typewriters & longhand

Yes! This is why I use my manual typewriter--a seafoam green Olivetti Lettera 22--for revisions. After I've moved the poem from head to notebook to computer, I print it out. Then I retype it over and over on the Lettera 22. Having to go slowly and deliberately, much more so than on a springy, superresponsive computer keyboard, does two things: 1) occupies "front room" of my awareness with a "hit this key, then this key, return here, double space" dancing kind of sequence, and 2) allows the occupants of the other "rooms" to peek their heads in, or sometimes waltz right in and take over the party. New lines, alternate words or phrasing, line breaks often rearrange themselves this way.



When I was working on Joan Murray (1917-1942), I wrote out her entire book in longhand, into a notebook. Copied the poems out several times, typed some too. Same thing. Poems get deeper when your (my) entire attention is occupied with them, reading and writing them simultaneously. It shuts off the backing tracks--wasn't Jordan talking about this when reading? That way your mind has of paying partial attention to the words you're reading, but partial attention to other things simultaneously.



Then again, in my own writing, I've always been interested in this simultaneity--finding ways to cultivate it--rather than distracted by it. I used to assistant-manage a record store in college, and had the job of unpacking and tracking all the shipments of cassettes and cds. On days they'd come in, I'd be in the backroom, alphabetizing & categorizing, sliding plastic cases in smooth motions across a long table. Sometimes music playing sometimes not. Always with a notebook and pen nearby. Stray lines, single words, sometimes whole poems appeared out the alphabetical repetition in my front subvocal track.



Well, I've mixed my metaphors, but you get what I'm saying.



Multiple mindtracks are one of the subjects of "Murmur" and several other older poems written around the same time. The conjuctions and synchronicities can be alot like blogging, actually. Several conversations touching on the same topics or tangential topics, a trail of links, or Jonathan saying he's not really into Sun Ra the day after I admitted the same to hubby who loaded my iPod with it, Chris Lott & I quoting O'Connors letters within days of each other, or John Latta and I reading Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer at the same time, for a few recent examples. It's like there's someone else in here with you--or out there with you--and it's comforting. I enjoy the little shocks of surprise the back tracks (or front room party crashers) can provide. It happens with automatic or constraint writing too. Process as subject, as goal.



Always arriving back at Harry Mathews. Satisfaction with result vs. pleasure in process.