Emily Dickinson

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Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

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I tried this poem with “my” new favorite script, but I’m worried it’s becoming a thoughtless default, so I tried again in cursive with brush and fountain pen.

I’m not sure any of these are the right fit for the poem, but I’m also trying to avoid torturing myself over these one-off poems. I’ve got plenty of second-guessing while scribing those books!

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                                    All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare, from As You Like It, spoken by Jaques

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I’m still infatuated with this script, even though both the Girl and Mama find it illegible. This one was graphed over 4 sheets and stitched together in GIMP. Unlike the Lord’s Prayer from the week before, I had switched inks before start this piece, so there is a slight natural gradation in the actual piece, which is pushed further in the computer.

A piece this long still prints out small on a letter sized sheet, so I need to look for shorter poems…or go back to my book projects. But things are so busy at work, I’m having a hard time slowing down in the mornings to take a breathe of calligraphy. This office pace, which started in December, is not sustainable, but hopefully the new guy who joined our team this week will take some of the load.

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This week I started playing with a variant of Gothicized Italics where part of each letter is written with the hairline edge of the pen. It’s a bit of Edward Johnston slamming into graffiti scripts.

Unfortunately, this hand is not easy to read. Then again, a couple of years ago, I had an epiphany that legibility is overrated.

I’m really digging the contrast of thick and thin. It brings me back to the old days of hand drafting, with thin verticals and thick horizontals, though I’ve had to retrain that preference since standard calligraphy is the opposite with thick verticals and thin horizontals.

It’s a joy to write, especially at full speed. I suspect it’s a bit like talus running, though I don’t have the courage to risk life and limb on high octane activities—such excitement is confined to my home studio.

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And here are a couple shots for Easter.

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Cheers!