So I had a physical recently and while we were going over the results of my bloodwork, my doctor mentioned how different he found handwriting and typing for production, on the one hand, and writing for publication versus speaking in front of an audience on the other. I agreed on both points. Being over 40, I still do a lot of handwriting, especially prose, until the arthritis in my hand kicks in and I have to stop. It is like my brain is wired to my moving right hand or something. It is a little different with poetry, in part because the amount of output is shorter and also if I suddenly decide to change line lengths or stanza breaks, it is simply easier on a computer to make those little changes without actually having to rewrite the text.

He also asked if I teach my students to read their work out loud. YES. I don’t know why it is but I find I hear problems that I can’t simply see reading quietly, especially clunkers and those small infelicities that get in the way of the brilliance that I frequently feel I could manage more if I could just get the 100% correct word in all the right places.