July 2022

Being in the right spot, with the right tools. That’s half the trick, isn’t it? This month, a curious mind asks the poets a practical, instrumental question. And they respond with words and photos!

What writing tools do you use at home? What about when you are on vacation or out on the range?
–Signed, On the Road Again

Dick Gibford:

To "On the Road Again,”

Personally, I am a very simple man and most all my distant relatives were cave dwellers. So, I have a lot of black ink pens and college lined notebooks scattered hither and yon from the cabin to the corrals. I have several notebooks and pens within reach at my bedside alongside my pistol, and fortunately I reach for my paper and pen far more often at night than I do the other, although every once in a "moon or two" I will have to silence Mr. Ratón, if he is chewing away off in a corner too loudly on a scrap of something or other.

So, I hope that answers your inquiry sufficiently.

—Signed, "On Vacation Out on the Range”

Photos of Dick “on vacation,” from the cabin to the corrals. Photos courtesy of Dick Gibford.

Waddie Mitchell:

For most of my writing life I used a yellow lined pad and a #2 pencil to do my damage. I even told people it was my preferred M.O. because it was more intimate than heartless machines. Truth was I never learned to type or use a typewriter and certainly not a computer.

By the time I was ready and willing to try a typewriter, they were obsolete so I got a big ol' desk computer. It had one of those mouse things and I'd run it off the screen and couldn't get it back on there. It scared me too. About all I'd do with that monster is snort and kick at it.

Then about eight or ten years ago, Lisa talked me into giving an iPad a try. It was very intuitive and easy to pick up. I could always just push a button and it would start me over from what I'd fouled up. Best of all, it has a yellow lined notepad in it to write on so I felt right at home. I still didn't know how to type though, but after near a decade of frustration, determination, perseverance, and natural abilities, I'm now typing up to four words a minute if I know how to spell 'um. Early on, because I liked my iPad a lot, I bestowed on it the title “iPard.” My ol' pal Hal Cannon is handy with any device or complicated thingamajig and he got my iPad to sign off as iPard.

When we're out of internet reach (which we are a lot), it doesn't affect my writing on it cuz the app I use is stuck inside somewheres and writes regardless if it's got enough of those net-rays to get me to the WFC page or not, but then, most of you folks probably know about that stuff already.

Sent from my iPard

Waddie with his iPard. Photo by Lisa Hackett.

Yvonne Hollenbeck:

What writing tools do I use at home, or on vacation, or out on the range?

Well, "On the Road Again," I would about have to say, "everything and almost anything!" At home, I usually like to be at my desktop computer. I find the computer very useful, in that you can move things around, check spelling, and I often consult "www.rhymezone.com" for rhyming words, or the "synonym" section on that useful site. However, I usually write poetry on a whim, which is when an idea comes to me, and that can be at anytime or anywhere. I usually have a pad and pencil handy wherever I am, in every room in my house. When I'm driving, I sometimes scribble ideas or lines on a pad in my lap, and "NO," I don't look at it until I'm stopped. That would be like texting while driving, I'm sure, but the biggest problem is trying to figure out what I wrote. I have been known to use an ear tag marker on a feed sack while in a pasture away from home (that's where the bulk of my poem, "The Ranch Rig" was drafted). Sometimes I have an idea come to me when I should be sleeping, so I get up and go to the bathroom, where I have a pad and pencil handy, and scribble a few lines. I suppose my housemates would think it strange that I'm up in the middle of the night working on a poem, so this way, they just think I was just up to relieve myself.

DW Groethe:

(1)...for at least fifty years I have always carried a pocket notebook and a pen or a pencil with me. Always. I figure when an idea or a line pops up in your noggin for a song or a poem you've got maybe a minute to set it down or the muses will give it to somebody else. (2)...once I get back home or wherever I've got one of my bigger notebooks (workbooks) I sit down and start fiddling around with it to see if it'll work into something. This is the first draft. Sometimes it takes a lotta writing to get to the point where it starts to be the poem you think you're looking for, tho, on a rare occasion, it'll fall out on the page almost whole. When I get to the point where I'm thinking "yeah, that might work," then I type it into my computer and put a copy into a binder for second drafts. It'll sit there and ferment in my brain till I get back to it maybe a day later, maybe more, but I always get around to the final rewrite.

Here's a bit of an aside....never use an eraser or the delete button. Ever. You need to be able to compare changes you've made right up till the day you finally realize you've piddled around with it long enough...so it must be done. Put it in a book and toss it to the unsuspecting public. Hopefully they won't duck when they see it coming.

Thanks for asking.

dw’s journals and books. Photos courtesy of DW Groethe.

Virginia Bennett:

I haven’t been able to write much since a brain injury I suffered from a bad horse wreck back in 2004, but I do remember the process I used while writing poems. If I was writing at home, I’d use pen and paper so I could write notes all over the page as ideas came to mind. I could also scratch words or phrases out if I conjured something better or draw an arrow to where I intended to move such things. I tried writing on a computer screen but, as far as first drafts go, it never worked for me.

I suggest the poet speak the new piece out loud and do it often because the words will change, either in placement in a line or into a better word as the poem comes to life while you speak and then recite it. Strive for as perfect a meter as you can get and the same goes for rhymes. Don’t settle for rhymes that are mundane, banal, or obvious. And don’t use words that kinda rhyme. I call it “Rhyme-ish.” Truck doesn’t really rhyme with torque, for example. As you search your mind for the right rhyme, the process will usually take you where you didn’t plan to go. That’s the very reason I loved working with rhymes.

There are a lot of important techniques in poetry writing and if you didn’t pay attention in high school English classes, ride on over to your favorite search engine and take some notes on those skills. Put them to use as your pen is poised over a tablet or fingers hover over a keyboard.

Virginia caught at her desk. Photo courtesy of Virginia Bennett.

You’ll want to carry a small pad of paper and pen with you all the time and even keep one on your bedside table. Of course, these days, you probably have a smartphone and are able to quickly thumb some ideas into a Notes app. Just know this: unless you are Superman with a Titanium Memory, you won’t remember that great inspiration that came to you as your horse clambers up a mountain pass if you don’t stop and write it down. You will forget it and we’ll all be the poorer for it. Reach in your pocket while you rein back to let your pony blow at the top and then scribble enough notes to remind yourself later. This act does an amazing feat: once you write that idea worthy of a Poet Laureate down, your mind will be freed from the impossible task of trying to remember the premise that came to you and it will be able to form new ideas to accompany that brilliant scenario you imagined. Be prepared to stop often as more and more ideas sprout into your consciousness. It will teach your horse lots of patience. Just be sure to add a couple hours to the ETA you give your family or boss before you leave.

Bill Lowman:

A clip pocket ball point pen and a shirt pocket note book. I jot down verses from the saddle horn, hay conditioner steering wheel, leaning against a corral rail or winter feeding pickup. At home, I write long hand on a lined tablet. What's a vacation? Computers are a total stranger to me. I have no idea even how to turn one on and with my lifelong and belated dyslexia diagnosis, I have no interest in learning, I'd probably hit a wrong key and erase everything. I wore an I-pad for a short time once, due to an injury.

I have coached myself to always write down a verse or line, no matter where, when, or how busy, then transfer and construct them to completion when I get home. I have found to me, as well as others, that the quick or subconscious lines turn out to be your best work, where the poems you labor over time and again never seem to turn out as well. I also write longhand a 900-word bi-monthly column in a multistate Ag publication and have now wrote 400-plus pages of my yet to publish autobiography. I buy tablets by the half dozen and have drained many, many pens dry of their ink. JoAnn has developed carpal tunnel transferring my musings on her computer to reach the "outside world."

I will have a verse rolling through my slumber at two a.m. and get up and jot it down, only to get back to bed and do it all over again. JoAnn will say, "I'm going to put you in a rubber room so I can get some sleep." I counter with, "But dear, I do my best writing when I'm not thinking."