The Sound of Poetry at Eighty Words Per Minute

Over at Author Amok this month, Laura Shovan is posting various sounds as daily writing prompts.  I finally got in on the fun yesterday with a poem in response to the sound of typing on an old typewriter.  You can find my poem "Eighty Words Per Minute" at Author Amok at http://authoramok.blogspot.com/2015/02/2015-sound-poem-project-day-11.html

Here's my poem in case you don't want to go to Laura's blog to read it:

EIGHTY WORDS PER MINUTE

I learned the value of precision

in the sound of eighty words per minute,

the bell signaling each line’s end

and the left hand to action,

levering the platen’s return.

Mother could type faster, but she knew

there is a tradeoff between accuracy and speed,

with little room for margins of error.

I learned to plan ahead,

place a pencil mark near the bottom

of the sheet to know when

the last line on the page was reached.

I learned the patience and the value

of not going too fast

when replacing the ribbon,

guiding it to the other spool—

efficiency sometimes means slowing down.

I learned to love words proofreading

the legal documents she typed,

their structured forms,

their mix of English and Latin,

black and white, precision and logic

impressed onto each page

at eighty words per minute,

thousands of words now worth

more to me than any picture.