Some of you have asked me where I got the lines under the name of my blog. They come from a poem I wrote for National Writing Project during the summer of 2010. I think we were discussing the future of literacy and I had a minor argument with Amy McElroy (who I respect very much) about whether or not the media that our words were served on mattered, or if it was just a matter of cultural perspective. My take was that technology is great for literacy. The creation of public texts has always been a portal that was guarded by the literati, the rich, or the academic. Technology is democratizing the way that we write and read, which surely changes our literacy, but definitely feeds--rather than stifle--the flames of communication.

“Writing”

I hear the

skritching of pencils,

but even as I type this,

I know it as

a dying sound;

fingernails on a chalkboard.

And you will groan,

“The systematic pumping

of expression through keys

is a caustic instrument!”

Of course you will.

To me, the thk-ing pulse

of keys mimics

the sine-wave tongue of the ocean, licking

away at sand that clumps

and then melts into the strand.

And I will moan,

when invariably people

leave the keys behind.

Of course I will.

But every man (or woman) (or child)

with a voice—

Everyone—

will be able to sing their words

to the world.

And we will be

back, at a better beginning.