Originally Posted: March 24th, 2011
Updated: August 4th, 2022

History

Typewriter Poetry started as a hobby project in 2011. It morphed into a traveling art project, & eventually became an online shop. (read more)

Have You Received A Typewriter Poem?

We’ve got some catching up to do!

It’s been a fun trip re-meeting everyone, again. I hope you’ll reach out with your story and a picture of your poem, or even a picture of yourself! [email protected]

Manifesto (2014)

This was the year music
was revealed to me. I don’t

know if it’s possible
to live off Free Poetry.

What kind of year can leave you hallow? (The kind without your own bed.)

You accept what this path leads to, what it consists of. You have forgotten what ennui feels like. But there is also your mother asking in a reverent whisper if you are homeless. With little to no steady employment nor living space, there’s room for obsession in your veins: Reality, Reality, Life, Art, Capitalism, Reality, Life. There’s room to fall in love with people places times and moments. Over and over again, every day—this is not exaggeration. Your bones shiver smiles. It comes easy, connecting with strangers. It is hard retaining friends. You receive the good will you give away. There is sleeping in train stations and people maliciously kicking you awake. There is restructuring narrative. There is sleeping in train stations and stumbling upon this year’s newest technology in Experimental Alarm Clocks.

(read more)

Original Ethos (2011)

Typewriter Poetry is a transient gift.

With public space as the backdrop to intimate conversation, I dance with people, poetry, and performance art to freely pass along That Which Cannot Be Consumed.

Replacing monetary and literary value with something a little bit…more, the poet (me!) and the stranger (you!) come together in celebration of all that is human, consciousness, and life.

In other words…I type free poems for people using my vintage typewriter.

I sit somewhere public with a cardboard sign (usually recycled from Corrugated Hearts) that reads “free poems.” Inevitably, someone is bold enough to ask for a poem. We talk, exchange stories, and I write them a poem based off our interaction or a subject of their choosing.

Most poems on this website are “orphans,” or poems whose recipients forgot to pick them up. Occasionally you’ll see a picture or scanned copy of a poem, thanks to a thoughtful reader who decided to email me a copy. For the most part, participants keep the one and only version…a symbolic fit for a project such as this.

With that being said. All poems are first drafts, birthed in abandon without literary consequence. I think that is one of the hardest parts about this project: being comfortable showing others “unrevised works,” something we writers have been taught to keep hidden until it is beaten into perfection. It’s a humbling experience, being surrounded by self-doubt and vulnerability as I challenge the self to remain raw, open, honest, and accepting of flaws.

Feel free to browse the poetry archives for daily typewritten poems and prompts.

There is no fee required for a poem—I am of the radical** belief that art, natural resources, and entertainment can and should be without monetary value—so submit a prompt, today!

** In this case, ‘radical’ referring to the original (and less often used) meaning: to the root of things, to the origin.