I like letters. The shapes of them. The contrast between lower and upper case. The dots for the “i” and “j,” crossing “t’s.”
I like writing very small. I like putting more than one line of text inside one line of college-ruled paper. I like college-ruled paper.
I like a good pen. Not a fancy pen, a good pen. One that doesn’t quit on me, that works with me, that makes the letters the way I like them. I like the pen to feel the right way on the page.
I also like paper that has the right texture. Bad texture is Very Discouraging. I have an almost-full, spiral-bound notebook that has little pockets between the sections and a snap to hold it closed. It is very nearly faultless but for this paper texture thing, and I am thinking of throwing it away. Not very environmentally friendly, but what can one do? Maybe I can recycle it.
I like fonts. These are endlessly fascinating, and also an excellent way to put off writing anything. Anything at all. One can be in genuine earnest, not scoping out the internet in any way whatsoever, and still accomplish Absolutely Nothing in the way of productivity because of the way the letter “g” looks in Palatino Linotype.
I like sentences. I like that they require letters, and also words, to make them up. I like them hand-written or in a variety of fonts. I like sentences to be made up of phrases. Or not. I like them to be long, with lots of recursive turns or parenthetical references. Or not. I like them to be filled with words that are fun to say. I like alliteration.
I like varied sentence structure. Sometimes I would tell my students this: “Vary your sentence structure,” and then show them how. I cannot imagine that any of my students did not ever feel anything other than Pure Bliss when I told them to vary their sentence structure. Who wouldn’t?
I like the way sentences work together. I like semi-colons. I like beginning sentences with conjunctions, and using many commas, and making commas work together with semi-colons. And I like the cantilevered sentence, hanging way out there for the world to see, holding to the rest in only a small way, just linked there at the back. This can be Vitally Important.
And I like poetry. Maybe I like poetry because of all of the above, but maybe also because poetry would likely exist without much of the above. Except for maybe letters, and, more likely, words, and all that they mean, or don’t.
Here is a poem I’ve just met. It’s come to me later than it should have, perhaps, but the poem isn’t to blame. And anyway, it’s never too late to know a poem, even if it’s at the very end of August.
August
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking
of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body
accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among
the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.
–Mary Oliver, American Primitive
