“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)
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If the bad times are coming, let ‘em come
Let the death drum break the slump
Before the once young braves succumb
The fickle flicker of desire expires
If the bad times are coming let ‘em come,
Let ‘em come.
Scroobius Pip
(Source: charlesbivona.com)
Soon, I’ll go bar hopping with @LiamPhuckall .. field test my new #poet business card. Word.
The people who do best at basic survival tasks (we know this experimentally, as well as intuitively) are cooperative, good at teamwork, often altruistic, mindful of the common good. In drastic emergencies like hurricanes or earthquakes, people surprise us by their sacrifices — of food, of shelter, even sometimes of life itself. Those who survive social or economic collapse, or wars, or pandemics, or starvation, will be those who manage scarce resources fairly; hoarders and dominators win only in the short run, and end up dead, exiled, or friendless. So, in every way we can we need to help each other, and our children, learn to be cooperative rather than competitive; to be helpful rather than hurtful; to look out for the communities of which we are a part, and on which we ultimately depend.
People talk about how tough earlier generations had it, and I for one have no clue how to plow a field. But challenges simply mutate according to the demands of the day. I may be worthless with crop rotation, but I’d like to see a pioneer woman take a left-hand turn at a busy intersection while reading a suggestive text from the guy who is currently making her heart pound. Or, because we all know that’s a terrible idea, I would like to see her take that left turn and not read that text message from the guy. The internal fortitude it requires not to cave in to these seductions on a minute-to-minute basis? Massive.
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 multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.
William Wordsworth
(Source: brainyquote.com)
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)
