“I am returning to the pencil. The premise of which remark signifies consciousness that at some point I left the pencil, a moment I have no recollection of. I am going to have to guess. It was around the age of eleven, just as learning got serious, that we were told we could use biro or fountain pens instead. Implicit in this message was the notion that pencil was somehow junior, inferior, not serious. …
“Just as I cannot remember stopping using them, I can’t quite pinpoint their return. …
“I find I can’t read now without one. For underlining and margin notes, the pencil’s the thing. It’s quick and doesn’t smudge …The great thing about these pencils … is the lack of fuss of them. … they don’t ask for much. The odd twist of the sharpener, yes. But not much more.
“Using a pencil I find myself following my best teaching advice: ‘Don’t rub out, just put a line through it’. It is as though the lack of physical pressure required to move my hand across the page somehow removes the psychological pressure to get it absolutely perfect first time. While I know it never will be, it’s a lesson I can never learn too often.”
Poet Anthony Wilson, “Pencil“, 11 May 2016