Writing

"Writing" (p. 118)

Howard Nemerov's "Writing" seems to focus on the appearance and the legacy of the written language. He compares physical events in the world to that of writing, particularly with ice skaters and their skate trails. He begins talking about slow cursive writing, then the significance (or lack of significance) of writing in foreign languages. Ice skating creates small scratches on icy surfaces in curved paths much like cursive writing, showing that such writing might seem meaningless at its surface yet will preserve the past because of its relatively long-lasting impressions. He repeats that writing is "miraculous" because of this ability to preserve and describe the world so that we can make sense of current events; he also seems to imply that subjective writing from multiple authors is crucial when attempting to preserve the concrete events from each author's point of view. He ends with a second, shorter stanza that mostly focuses on physical features in the world, and he implies that despite the long-lasting aspects of writing, the world will eventually erase the records in the ice, or all manuscripts that contain the world's history through peoples' views.

The title of this poem particularly intrigued me much like the word "building." The "-ing" ending for the title signals that people are constantly using written language. Rather than using a title such as "Written Words," "Script Language," or anything similar, the word "Writing" seems to show that the layout of languages into a visual form is a continuing process that may never end. However, the end of the poem says that the skaters must eventually leave the ice, and when that happens, the Earth's weather will eventually erase their history, much like how history will eventually be lost if writing ceases. The speaker (through the use of writing) seems to urge the importance of maintaining history through manuscripts so that we will not lose our own worlds.