By Rita Joan Dozlaw
Interlacing threads or straw on a loom or on one’s lap are not the only ways to create a weaving. Word weaving is an art form often done on one’s lap or desktop. Constructed first in the mind, then twisted over and under themselves, words form a piece of writing sometimes called a yarn. It is spun like a spider’s web. Such a web catches a reader who, from side to side and front to back, experiences the pattern of the alphabet threaded through in a myriad of designs.
These shapes craft a poem, tell a story, bring out truths and conjure fantasies. Intertwining and mingling twenty-six little letters create a written expression of life and its complexities, sensualities and simplicities. The weaver’s imagination, linked to an empty page, hides under the heart for a time and eventually trickles out to the ends of one’s fingertips.
Clutching a calligraphy pen, an ancient quill or a ballpoint pen, the nimble digits allow structure and form to take place as the weaver plaits the plot. In the end, the tale miraculously appears on a computer screen and is secured with a knot or the click of a mouse. “Save as” brings a sigh.
The achievement is a collection of words like no other collection. The brand new weaving is textured overall with feelings running the gamut of frustration, pain, fulfillment and joyous relief. The hand-held unpretentious work of diligence elicits satisfaction for the writer, plus the sweet possibility of an astonishing appreciation by a reader. For, the artful craft creates its very own profound legacy worthy of the endless effort by the word weaver.