Being an intensive notebook writer (a journalist, in yet another sense of the word), I am of course hugely in favor of reproducing the notes more or less as is. I enjoy reading notebooks of major writers and thinkers from Wittgenstein to Kafka (was just dipping into The Blue Octavo Notebooks as I do from time to time and took down many quotes). I rarely reproduce my notes outside the notebooks. This would certainly be a step towards producing a work in the conventional sense, but I have not had a strong enough desire to do so. I did keep a journal in electronic form during a short period in which I was between notebooks. I did not yet have a new notebook on-hand and wanted to use the one that I had left behind in the Machida house. I found that typing into the electronic file generated lines of thought and types of narrative and descriptive writing that normally do not appear in the notebook. It has a value in and of itself, but it's not the notebook as I understand it - written in hand in a physical notebook, influenced by the type of pen and type of paper one is using. The physical notebook often determines the type of writing (see Ron Silliman's Chinese Notebook). So these are really separate activities. In any case, enjoying reading your notes in the form of haiku as always. I especially liked that last one inspired by Christopher Hitchens and wrote it down in my notebook. And now it's time for another piece of calligraphy (another thing that makes the physical notebook essential.)
The Hitchens book ends with something like "Without death, no person is whole. No person is free." This is what I am riffing off. I am quoting from memory as the actual book is buried in the stacks somewhere.
Yeah, these are sort of an intermediate state. Rather than write 'properly' in a notebook my first drafts tend to be on scraps of paper or in the backs of books I am reading. I am thinking to reread Emily Dickinson's poems on unfolded envelopes, The Gorgeous Nothings.
That's a beautiful book - the Emily Dickinson on envelopes and scraps of paper. I have it at home somewhere. Whenever I see someone such as yourself writing on scraps of paper and other odds and ends (which have to be searched for and gathered together in order to bring the notes together) I feel like buying them a nice notebook! But of course, everyone has their own process, and the scraps of paper have their own interest and charm (as proven by the book of Emily Dickinson scraps). I suppose when it comes down to it, the notebook or journal has itself become "the work" for me. So, I want it to be altogether there in one package. Plus, I love the physical notebook (often sketchbooks). Despite this fact, I always find it difficult taking the step of making one of these notebooks into a final work. I do have a couple of things, one of the Nepalese notebooks in particular, containing poems and calligraphy, that could easily be transformed into a final work (photographs of the original pages of the notebook would appear with the transcribed/printed poems), but even in a case such as this one where the notebook as is can easily be made into a published work, I find myself hesitating. I'm also attracted to the idea of a cache of notebooks being found after the writer's death and then a selection being made by an editor. Not a really big chance of this occurring of course, but the bulk of the notebooks I produced between around 1983 and 2020 or so are now contained in the special collections of the University of Chicago Library, so at least they're safely stored! And now I have another collection growing from recent years,,,
In her book Reading Zukofsy's 80 Flowers, Michelle Leggott makes extensive use of his research and compositional notebooks (two different sets of notebooks with different approaches).
Being an intensive notebook writer (a journalist, in yet another sense of the word), I am of course hugely in favor of reproducing the notes more or less as is. I enjoy reading notebooks of major writers and thinkers from Wittgenstein to Kafka (was just dipping into The Blue Octavo Notebooks as I do from time to time and took down many quotes). I rarely reproduce my notes outside the notebooks. This would certainly be a step towards producing a work in the conventional sense, but I have not had a strong enough desire to do so. I did keep a journal in electronic form during a short period in which I was between notebooks. I did not yet have a new notebook on-hand and wanted to use the one that I had left behind in the Machida house. I found that typing into the electronic file generated lines of thought and types of narrative and descriptive writing that normally do not appear in the notebook. It has a value in and of itself, but it's not the notebook as I understand it - written in hand in a physical notebook, influenced by the type of pen and type of paper one is using. The physical notebook often determines the type of writing (see Ron Silliman's Chinese Notebook). So these are really separate activities. In any case, enjoying reading your notes in the form of haiku as always. I especially liked that last one inspired by Christopher Hitchens and wrote it down in my notebook. And now it's time for another piece of calligraphy (another thing that makes the physical notebook essential.)
The Hitchens book ends with something like "Without death, no person is whole. No person is free." This is what I am riffing off. I am quoting from memory as the actual book is buried in the stacks somewhere.
Yeah, these are sort of an intermediate state. Rather than write 'properly' in a notebook my first drafts tend to be on scraps of paper or in the backs of books I am reading. I am thinking to reread Emily Dickinson's poems on unfolded envelopes, The Gorgeous Nothings.
That's a beautiful book - the Emily Dickinson on envelopes and scraps of paper. I have it at home somewhere. Whenever I see someone such as yourself writing on scraps of paper and other odds and ends (which have to be searched for and gathered together in order to bring the notes together) I feel like buying them a nice notebook! But of course, everyone has their own process, and the scraps of paper have their own interest and charm (as proven by the book of Emily Dickinson scraps). I suppose when it comes down to it, the notebook or journal has itself become "the work" for me. So, I want it to be altogether there in one package. Plus, I love the physical notebook (often sketchbooks). Despite this fact, I always find it difficult taking the step of making one of these notebooks into a final work. I do have a couple of things, one of the Nepalese notebooks in particular, containing poems and calligraphy, that could easily be transformed into a final work (photographs of the original pages of the notebook would appear with the transcribed/printed poems), but even in a case such as this one where the notebook as is can easily be made into a published work, I find myself hesitating. I'm also attracted to the idea of a cache of notebooks being found after the writer's death and then a selection being made by an editor. Not a really big chance of this occurring of course, but the bulk of the notebooks I produced between around 1983 and 2020 or so are now contained in the special collections of the University of Chicago Library, so at least they're safely stored! And now I have another collection growing from recent years,,,
In her book Reading Zukofsy's 80 Flowers, Michelle Leggott makes extensive use of his research and compositional notebooks (two different sets of notebooks with different approaches).
I think I still have the Leggott around somewhere. I should go back and take a look again.