A Writer’s Poetry Notebook Always Has a Story
When the world is uncertain, the written word can be stabilizing.
“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley
Things like fancy notebooks to write in were never something my family would indulge in when I was a child. I grew up in a beach town that survived on the tourist trade. Summers were incredibly busy and winters were spent agonizingly pinching pennies.
During my earliest school years, the only writing utensils we’d buy were simple pencils or pens at the dollar store and notebooks when they went on sale at ShopRite for less than 10 cents per book. They were typically the lowest quality notebooks with flimsily thin paper quality, fast-rusting spirals, and the covers looked like they were formatted in MS Paint. They got the job, but they weren’t nice.
I sometimes received nicer notebooks or journals as gifts, but my parents would stock up on years’ worth of notebooks when they went on sale cheap enough. I did most of my youthful writing in these flimsy things with their easily bent spirals. My family was low income enough to collect food stamps, but my…
