Why the Typewriter

We get asked about the typewriters a lot. People want to know if they're an aesthetic choice, a vintage prop to set a mood. The answer is no, though they do. The typewriters are an essential part of our method.

​

When a poet sits down with a guest, conversation is raw material and the typewriter is the only tool we use to process it. There is no screen between the poet and the page, no cursor blinking, no opportunity to open a browser or get pulled sideways by a notification. The machine asks for a specific kind of attention: forward, committed, present. You type a word and it is on the page. You cannot highlight it, drag it, undo it. You live with it and you build with it. This is what makes the process both honest and fast; there is no going backwards, only deeper.

​

The inability to revise in real-time forces a kind of generative momentum that is hard to access on a laptop. The poet has to trust their instinct, follow language where it leads, and let the imperfections stay. Cross-outs become part of the texture. The final poem carries the evidence of its own making, and you can see the thinking on the page. That is part of what makes it feel authentic. A typewritten poem is ink pressed into paper by a metal key striking through a ribbon. It has weight. It has texture. It is a physical thing made in a physical moment, and people treat it that way: they hold it, they frame it, they keep it. 

 

We also love what a typewriter or three does to a room. The sound alone changes the atmosphere. The rhythmic clacking announces that something is being made, right now, in real-time. It draws people in. It gives them permission to be curious. And because the machine requires no electricity, no internet connection, no printer, no toner, and no extension cords, we can set up anywhere. A garden, a rooftop, a ballroom, a boardroom. 

​

Every poem we type produces a second copy through carbon transfer: an analog duplicate made by pressure alone. We keep these copies, and at the end of an event they become the material for our Synthesis work: a single poem woven from the threads of every conversation. A method of copying that feels like it belongs to a different era. There is something almost alchemical about it, the idea that the force of striking a key can leave its mark on two pages at once. There is an original and a copy; not identical, a pair, and to each their own purpose.

 

We are not nostalgic for the past (maybe a little). We are not pretending it is 1955. But we do believe that the tools we use shape the attention we bring. A typewriter does not multitask. It does not optimize. It sits there, heavy and patient, waiting for you to show up with your full attention.