“A writer’s notebook is not a diary. Writers react. Writers need a place to record these reactions. That’s what a writer’s notebook is for. It gives you a place to write down what makes you angry or sad or amazed, to write down what you noticed and don’t want to forget. A writer’s notebook gives you a place to live like a writer.” - Ralph Fletcher
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Commonplace books (or commonplaces) were a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They became significant in Early Modern Europe.
“Commonplace” is a translation of the Latin term locus communis (from Greek tópos koinós, see literary topos) which means “a theme or argument of general application”, such as a statement of proverbial wisdom. In this original sense, commonplace books were collections of such sayings, such as John Milton’s commonplace book. Scholars have expanded this usage to include any manuscript that collects material along a common theme by an individual.
Such books were essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: medical recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas.
Commonplaces were used by readers, writers, students, and scholars as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they had learned. Each commonplace book was unique to its creator’s particular interests.
[Wikipedia]
(Source: charlesbivona)
If you would like to be notified when my book is available, please click HERE. Thank you. =)
Soon, I’ll go bar hopping with @LiamPhuckall .. field test my new #poet business card. Word.
I’ll write whatever I damn please, whenever I damn please and as I damn please and it’ll be good if the authentic spirit of change is on it.
William Carlos Williams
(Source: charlesbivona.com)
I do feel a responsibility to society because of going into print: a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.
E.B. White
(Source: The Atlantic)
A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.
Salman Rushdie
(Source: charlesbivona.com)
Stressors: a very short poem
by Charles Bivona, exhausted poet
America, you made me
Sob and/or
Vomit this morning.
(Source: charlesbivona.com)
#Occupy Literature, 2012. #ows
The Eviction Notice
She says, soothing, that I should be proud of myself, of my hustle, of my ability to quickly gather enough money to save our home. She loves me. But she doesn’t understand. Getting an eviction notice was my failure.
(Source: charlesbivona.com)
My Near Eviction Did Some Damage #ows #poem
Immediately after catching up—after begging, borrowing, moving money around; after finally convincing the banks to release funds for the checks I’d deposited five days prior; and after I handed my property manger a certified check for several thousand dollars in overdo rent; after I stopped my eviction less than 24 hours before court, skin of my fucking teeth—the very next day after that, my already frail health collapsed. This is my life. I am the 99%.
(Source: charlesbivona.com)
