COMMONPLACE BOOK.

Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish

The dictionary defines commonplace book as transcribed extracts from other works, collected for personal use. This once-popular practice seems to have died out, or at least mutated beyond recognition. The poet Wallace Stevens kept a handwritten one for twenty years, and often glossed the transcriptions with associations, disagreements, or generalizations from the found details. His Sur Plusieurs Beaux Sujects strikes me as thought rehearsal, preparation for poetry. Commonplace derives from locus communis: general theme; community location. For ours, I select the extract from something I’m reading, and Lin does a drawing in response. – mg

View Commonplace Book >