In looking for events and other such things to commemorate National Poetry Month, I ran across this posting on poets.org:
Start a commonplace book
Since the Renaissance, devoted readers have been copying their favorite poems and quotations into notebooks to form their own personal anthologies called "commonplace books." These collections can be a source of enjoyment and solace, reminding the keeper of favorite books and poems, and can even become family heirlooms. You may devote a corner of a regular journal to jotting down quotes or poems that strike your fancy or obtain a blank book just for this purpose.
As Max W. Thomas says in "Reading and Writing the Renaissance Commonplace Book: A Question of Authorship?", "commonplace books are about memory, which takes both material and immaterial form; the commonplace book is like a record of what that memory might look like." Or, in Jonathan Swift's words:
"A commonplace book is what a provident poet cannot subsist without, for this proverbial reason, that 'great wits have short memories:' and whereas, on the other hand, poets, being liars by profession, ought to have good memories; to reconcile these, a book of this sort, is in the nature of a supplemental memory, or a record of what occurs remarkable in every day's reading or conversation. There you enter not only your own original thoughts, (which, a hundred to one, are few and insignificant) but such of other men as you think fit to make your own, by entering them there."
—from "A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet"
Today, find a small notebook to record poems or fragments of poems that you come across in your reading. As you add to your own commonplace book, you will be drawing a map of your life as a reader and thinker, creating a valuable portrait of your memory and time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This got me thinking, what is this blog other then a modern commonplace book? I think most people use and social media sites in this way now, or at least a lot of people do. Think of all the retweets and shared posts you see... Well, this will be my Commonplace-Retweet-Shared Post Blog! It basically was anyway, I think - now it's just offical! :)
To be honest, I was also inspired by my friend Marloe's (http://mymochapoollife.blogspot.com/) initiative to share a poem a day with her friends this month to both introduce them to something that plays a big role in her own life as well as to celebrate National Poetry Month.
Are you ready, my few but faithful readers? Here we go!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment