BRIGHT STARS SPEAK OF YOUR VIRTUES
…speak of how we don’t look
up anymore because there’s nothing
to see but a few fixed stars
a satellite….
Sometimes I take great pleasure out of going in a completely different direction than the obvious. The title of this poem is actually a phrase Galileo used in his dedication of his book “The Starry Messenger” to Prince Cosimo the Second – yes, THAT Cosimo of the Medicis.
So while It would have been easy to turn a poem with a title like that into some sort of love poem, I chose instead to talk about light pollution – at least that’s how the poem starts off. It ends up going to a much darker place.
Though this red ink is not quite Great Red Spot red, I thought it fitting to use it for the first poem that references, though obliquely, Jupiter. I picked this ink up at a great little stationery store in Calgary, Alberta called Reids. I was down there on a work road trip and I can’t go into a new stationery store without buying even a little something. I also got a nifty pen there that will show up in a lesson a few weeks from now.
A note here about bricks and mortar is in order I think. Yes, one could buy any ink one wanted online for probably less than one would pay in a store. but that’s not the point, is it? I would not have picked up this bottle of ink if I had not seen it with my own eyes. Yes, it is a plain old red. There are so many fancy red inks out there with all sorts of sheen and shading but when I think of red ink, this is what I see. Red. And the fact that the label was applied crookedly only makes me love this classic little bottle even more.
This ink is also the perfect choice for the Pilot Metropolitan I used for this lesson. I own three Metropolitans because they are so cheap yet so good. Seriously, you can pick one up for between $20 and $25. They’re metal pens with a nice hefty feel in the hand. And the nib on them is almost as good as the nibs on the Prera. The feed on the Prera is a bit cleaner and the nib is a bit smoother but unless you’re writing with one of each in either hand (look at you, go you ambidextrous wonder!) you probably won’t notice the difference.
If you see one at the price mentioned above though you should probably take it. Pilot recent re-introduced the Explorer pen but this time as a plastic fountain pen. It is currently priced in the mid $20 range and looks set to be Pilot’s intro line which means a price hike for the Metropolitan – assuming they don’t discontinue it altogether 😦
About Learn Cursive with Lunatic Engine. Each week, until my first book of poetry launches in April 2020, I am going to complete a cursive worksheet featuring lines from the poems in the book with notes on which tool I used. I will post the blank sheets as pdf’s below and here on the full explanation page for you to download, print and complete.
A new lesson with new lines will be added to the complete document so that by the time the book comes out, you’ll have not only had a chance to read a couple of lines from each poem, but you’ll have written them yourself.
So there you have it: Learn Cursive, with lines from Lunatic Engine.
Lunatic Engine 