Handwriting:An Elegy

07 Nov, 2011 - Joannah Lodico

I want to thank my mother for teaching me cursive. My writing today is more half-cursive/half-print, but it’s mine and I use it to write notes, lists, and personal letters when I have the time and patience. Ann Wroe reflects on the dying art of handwriting with intelligence and beauty in her article, Handwriting: An Elegy.

Wroe finds joy in the details:

“The instrument matters but, for the moment, seize anything. The old fountain pen, so familiar that it nestles like a warm fifth finger in the crook of the thumb, its clip slightly shaky with over-use; the pencil, its lead half-blunt and not quite steady in that smooth cone of wood; the ultra-fine felt tip from the office cupboard, with its no-nonsense simplicity, or the ancient mapping pen, nibbed like a bird’s claw, which surely writes only in copperplate, scratching fiercely as it goes. Seize even a ball-point, though its line is mean and thin, and though teachers will tell you that nothing ruins writing faster. Dip, fill or shake vigorously; and write.”

Her article is thought provoking and makes you ask yourself, “when was the last time I sent a handwritten letter to a friend?”

After reading her article, maybe you will feel inspired to revive the art of handwriting.