poems from the prehistoric

Now when I watch old footage of poets using typewriters I feel like I’m seeing poems made with stone tools.

no hardcopy

To think of a digital Dickinson, her poems locked away in some scrapped hard drive.

executable file

It may show up attached as .doc or .pdf, but a poem is really an .exe file.

skips a generation

In the era of word processing software, the poet faced with a protracted power outage reverts to longhand as though the machine age, represented by the typewriter, never happened.

(n.b.: on the fifth night without power.)