Featured Poem
Cursive is back in many schools even in this age of keyboards. Sadly, third graders are saying good-by
to the letters they grew up with, the trusted stick figures of printing that cross the page step by step
inside a crosswalk of reassuring lines. Time is short, we tell them, they must pick up the pace, merge letters
in a fast-flowing stream of ink that crosses over itself in loops and rolls even stunt pilots might be
afraid to try. Printing was more my speed with its deliberate strokes that were so easy on the hand
and eye—cursive was crime in the making. Was it the pressure to get it right that made my fingers
throttle the pen harder and harder as it moved from left to right, choking the life out of words,
leaving legibility hanging on for dear life while the joy of writing flatlined? Consonants, vowels,
capitals, even the friendliest of small case letters—I killed them all, tearfully at first but then with murder
in my heart. Maybe they should have locked me up, kept me after school copying away until all my letters
learned to play together. But they never put the cuffs on and sent me out into the cursive world anxious
when I signed my name, fearful of the blank sheet, inarticulate in a prison of poor penmanship.