Poem Composed on an Old Typewriter
Sam Campbell
Christmas present, 2019: vimtage Smith Coroma
yellowed keys, electric motor humming
low and comstamt behimd the imtermittemt
clicks of keys smacking letters omto paper.
The “ ” key doesm’t work, substitute “m.”
The sliding part, whatever you call it, kmocked
Alice amd Womderlamd amd her advemtures
Off my desk whem the bell tolled the reset.
Before poetry, we had to pry opem the case,
Which was stuck, perhaps for years,
Abamdomed im a thift shop, like all good,
old treasures. The previous writer left us words
im the machime: “I must appologise (spellimg,
omly ome “p”) for the stick im the words,
but I assure you I am scarimg the cat.”
Sam Campbell is a writer and teacher from Tennessee. She earned her English M.A. from East Tennessee State University, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of The Mockingbird. She serves Arkansas International as Social Media Editor and holds editorial positions at Orison and The Great Lakes Review. She is the fiction editor and co-founder of Black Moon. She publishes across all genres; her work appears in October Hill, Tennessee’s Emerging Poets Anthology, and Bloodroot, among others. Her awards include, but are not limited to, the 2019 James Still Prize for Short Fiction and 2019 Jesse Stuart Prize for Young Adult Writing.