It keeps happening. I tell someone I do all my composing on a computer and they stare at me like I’ve just announced I barbeque babies at summer picnics. “But not when you write POETRY,” they prod. When I tell them, "Especially when I write poetry," they invariably respond with "I couldn’t do that. I have to write it on paper." They may admit to transferring their writing from the notebook, journal or revered yellow legal pad to computer for printing out but use the computer for creation, composition? Blasphemy! A poet sitting comfortably before her computer, composing and revising to her heart’s content just isn’t compatible with the traditional image of an angsty, ink-splattered scribe scratching away in her cold garret with her inspired quill. Those who condemn computer composition as unnatural are often quite smug in their pen to paper purity.

I started writing the traditional way on paper. I remember the process quite well.

1. Write an idea down. Use notebooks and paper pads if available. If not, use easy-to-lose envelopes, scraps and napkins (Be of good cheer. Lost poems, after all, are your best poems).

2. Revise it by scratching things out until it’s nearly illegible.

3. Copy what you can read of the revision over and begin tweaking again.

4. Decide the poem is done and copy over a final version.

5. Type or keyboard finished poem to produce finished copy, assuming you find the scrap you wrote it on and get around to transferring it.

My conversion from pen to computer came about forcibly. I had no choice. Chemotherapy side effects left me unable to do most fine motor tasks without pain. Gripping a pen or pencil, especially as intensely as I do when I write, just isn’t possible for me. Keyboarding, with some modifications, was much easier for me. Faced with the choice of composing poems on a computer or not writing at all, I learned to word-process.

This practice, which began out of necessity, soon revealed itself to be serendipity. BC (before computer) I had never really liked revision. Even more than the labour-intensiveness of copying poems over, I loathed trying to decipher my crossed-out scribbles when I realized that a revision had not been an improvement. I suspect I abandoned many poems or, even worse, accepted them as "good enough" because of the tediousness of revision with a pen. Switching to pencil didn’t help, as I was no better at decoding smudges than I was ink splots.

To my surprise, I found revising on a computer was nearly effortless. Spellcheck helped me catch mistakes when my chemo-fogged brain stumbled over the correct form of a word. It didn’t take me long to realize that I could save every successive version of a poem (Handwalking1, Handwalking2, etc.), giving me access to earlier versions and allowing me to preserve a legible record of my writing process. Poems saved to disk and burned to CD are a lot harder to lose and easier to store than scraps of paper (Practice safe computing, kids. Always make a backup!). Over the years, I have found that composing on a computer has improved my writing. Now I see revision as the gift of the Muse, not an ordeal. I spend much more time crafting each individual poem.

A story about a conversation between Jack London and a photographer keeps coming to mind when I think about this issue. London was having his portrait done by noted San Francisco photographer, Arnold Genthe. London arrived for the session and began with praise for the photographic art of his friend: "You must have a wonderful camera...It must be the best camera in the world...You must show me your camera."

Genthe then used his standard studio camera to make what is considered the classic image of Jack London. When the sitting was finished, Genthe could not resist: "I have read your books, Jack, and I think they are important works of art. You must have a wonderful typewriter."

To me, this defensive resistance to an obviously beneficial technology is quite Luddite. If these rejecters of technology were really honest, they’d say, I won’t compose on a computer. I am sure that there were likeminded naysayers cursing the switch from oral tradition to carving on rocks, from stone to the elegance of writing on vellum. What are they afraid of? Any tool is only as good as the person using it. The creative spark doesn’t come from the pen, pencil, typewriter or computer. It comes from the mind of the poet.