Fleur Adcock wonders if handwriting mirrors character. The fact that the next poem in her new collection, Hoard (Bloodaxe Books, £9.95), is called Six Typewriters suggests her own solution to the question.
HER USUAL HAND
My signature begins with a shape
I never use elsewhere: a relic
of the initial ‘F’ I was taught
in ‘real writing’ at my seventh school.
~
My writing became, if anything,
less real as further schools numbed it,
and the sprinting pace of lecture notes
crushed it into a kind of shorthand.
~
In my first library job, my boss
thrust a manual on penmanship
at me: the overdue cards I sent
brought shame on the University.
~
For all the charms of the special nib
and its trellis patterns on the page,
Italic script was not the answer;
it was not writing; it was drawing.
~
So my friends couldn’t read my letters?
Very well, I would learn to type them.
My private messages to myself
could remain in their workaday rags.
~
If handwriting mirrors character
all I can see mine reflecting is
my headlong scramble for the exit,
shouting something over my shoulder.
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