The joys of ink,
archaic authors often refer to,
elude me.

What about the visceral joy of
slamming keys in rapid succession,
as if beating metaphor from tool,

like a gorilla with a bone?

It is more organic to callous fingers
with the unforgivingly narrow A’s and R’s and S’s,

than sport calligraphy across the page,
as if the form affected the depth of the content.

I have never been able to write as fast as I think,
so my longhand is shortened thought.

It omits the motion, the arc of my discourse;
It sounds childlike, asinine,

despite the swan’s neck of my F or G,

or the figure skater tracing
my O or P across the newly frozen lake.

No, typing is my interface,
my interactive device for these conversations,

it is my microphone,
my bone.

By Michael Gallagher

My name is Michael Sean Gallagher. I am a Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I am Co-Founder and Director of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to ICT and mobile for development (M4D); we have worked with USAID, GSMA, UN Habitat, Cambridge University and more on education and development projects. I was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, a project that explores how teaching at The University of Edinburgh unfold over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift what it means to be at university. Previously, I was the Research Associate on the NERC, ESRC, and AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund sponsored GCRF Research for Emergency Aftershock Forecasting (REAR) project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (한국외국어대학교) in Seoul, Korea. I have also completed a doctorate at University College London (formerly the independent Institute of Education, University of London) on mobile learning in the humanities in Korea.

3 thoughts on “The joys of ink”
  1. I agree. I have found that there are times when I enter a “zone” while typing, but that it hardly ever occurs in longhand. This being said, I also find that there are times when I enjoy the frenetic pace that I must endure while writing in my journal; to get everything out before it evaporates.

  2. I agree. I have found that there are times when I enter a “zone” while typing, but that it hardly ever occurs in longhand. This being said, I also find that there are times when I enjoy the frenetic pace that I must endure while writing in my journal; to get everything out before it evaporates.

  3. I agree. I have found that there are times when I enter a “zone” while typing, but that it hardly ever occurs in longhand. This being said, I also find that there are times when I enjoy the frenetic pace that I must endure while writing in my journal; to get everything out before it evaporates.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.