A 17th Century Commonplace Book
O NE OF MY SISTER-FRIENDS is going through a rough, tough time. Wisely, I think, she’s remembered to put out the call to her sisters both real (lucky girl, she has two of them) and virtual for support. I was particularly struck by a brilliant request she made a couple of weeks ago. What did she ask for to get her through? You’ll never guess.
She’d started keeping a journal, on the advice of several, and it was helping. But she wanted more than her own words. She asked us to send her the words of others that had meant something to us, inspired us, helped us process through our own dark storms. My sweet friend asked us for poetry.
What she is creating to carry her through hard times is a centuries-old tradition, the commonplace book. Commonplacing is “the practice of entering literary excerpts and personal comments into a private journal, that is, into a commonplace book or, to use a 17th century synonym, a silva rerum (“a forest of things”). Typically the excerpts were regarded as exceptionally insightful or beautiful or as applicable to a variety of situations, and so as such they are often especially quotable. . . . The practice of commonplacing can be traced back in the European tradition to the 5th century B.C.E. and the Sophist, Protagoras.” (This is from library scholar Norman Anderson, who’s got an entire bibliography on commonplacing, here. Another great resource is Professor Lucia Knoles.)
I am too disorganized to have my own commonplace book, but I am a lover of poetry from the time I was a tiny girl. My mother likes to remember how she read Emily Dickinson to baby me while I (messily) ate my lunch. She got to hear beautiful words, so did I, and she didn’t have to watch me smear peas all over my face and plate. As I’ve grown older, I still love Emily, but I’ve got other picks, too. I sent them on to my friend, and others responded as well. Little is more inspiring than suddenly receiving flashes of beautiful brilliance from an entire network of people, connected by the love of a friend.
I loved this quote, from Thoreau: “Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life…. know your own bone: gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw at it still.” Chew on that, and be sure to read some of the wonderful poems friends suggested:
- Sharon Olds, The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb
- Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
- Robert Hass, Meditations at Lagunitas
- Richard Brautigan, Your Catfish Friend
What would you recommend?
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I’ve been following this practice for years and didn’t know it had a name. Now the internet has made it easier than ever to share consoling poems. When a friend was struggling with cancer (terminal, although she never spoke the word), I would send her links. One day I picked Robert Frost’s “The Silken Tent” (my note said, “This reminds me of you and why you’re so beloved”). Another day I introduced her to Mary Oliver, whose poems she later shared with her daughter. Oddly, I had never known of her deep appreciation of poetry until the end of her life, when she developed a craving for the solace and reflection that it can provide within a matter of minutes. Through poetry, my friend and I were able to deepen our connection until the end.
A few specific poems I like to share with troubled friends: Jane Kenyon’s “Happiness” for the depressed, her wonderful “Otherwise” for those in search of meaning, and Anne Sexton’s “The Fortress” for anyone who’s lost her mother.
Oh my goodness, when I first started reading, “Wild Geese” came almost immediately to mind! I have been struck by that poem so often, lately. (I even sent it to my mother, who is apparently now printing it out to hang above her own computer.)
I’d also recommend Margaret Atwood’s “We are hard” and Allen Ginsberg’s “Song” (which has one of my favorite lines of poetry: “the weight of the world is love”).
This has always been a favorite of mine just for the imagery:
What’s in My Journal
by William Stafford
Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can’t find them. Someone’s terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.
and this is another:
Mrs. Hill
by B.H. Fairchild
I am so young that I am still in love
with Battle Creek, Michigan: decoder rings,
submarines powered by baking soda,
whistles that only dogs can hear. Actually,
not even them. Nobody can hear them.
Mrs. Hill from next door is hammering
on our front door shouting, and my father
in his black and gold gangster robe lets her in
trembling and bunched up like a rabbit in snow
pleading, oh I’m so sorry, so sorry,
so sorry, and clutching the neck of her gown
as if she wants to choke herself. He said
he was going to shoot me. He has a shotgun
and he said he was going to shoot me.
I have never heard of such a thing. A man
wanting to shoot his wife. His wife.
I am standing in the center of a room
barefoot on the cold linoleum, and a woman
is crying and being held and soothed
by my mother. Outside, through the open door
my father is holding a shotgun,
and his shadow envelops Mr. Hill,
who bows his head and sobs into his hands.
A line of shadows seems to be moving
across our white fence: hunched-over soldiers
on a death march, or kindly old ladies
in flower hats lugging grocery bags.
At Roman’s Salvage tire tubes
are hanging from trees, where we threw them.
In the corner window of Beacon Hardware there’s a sign:
WHO HAS 3 OR 4 ROOMS FOR ME. SPEAK NOW.
For some reason Mrs. Hill is wearing mittens.
Closed in a fist, they look like giant raisins.
In the Encyclopaedia Britannica Junior
the great Pharoahs are lying in their tombs,
the library of Alexandria is burning.
Somewhere in Cleveland or Kansas City
the Purple Heart my father refused in WWII
is sitting in a Muriel cigar box,
and every V-Day someone named Schwartz
or Jackson gets drunk and takes it out.
In the kitchen now Mrs. Hill is playing
gin rummy with my mother and laughing
in those long shrieks that women have
that make you think they are dying.
I walk into the front yard where moonlight
drips from the fenders of our Pontiac Chieftain.
I take out my dog whistle. Nothing moves.
No one can hear it. Dogs are asleep all over town.
Hi Rona–Nice to see you back. Yes, the name is wonderful, isn’t it? I first learned about the practice of commonplacing while studying Mark Twain for a film I was developing (sadly, never made.) His wife, no literary slouch herself, kept one.
Isn’t Mary Oliver the best? Another of hers that I absolutely treasure is “A Dream of Trees”. It reminds me of Yeats, especially his “The Second Coming”, and always gives me chills:
There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.
There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.
I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?
Hi Danielle–Thanks for the suggestions. I didn’t know either of these, so for others who’d like to read them (they ARE wonderful), the Atwood poem is here and the Ginsberg here, though I quibble with him: I think love is lightness, not weight. At least, most of the time :-)
Hi Roadchick–WOW. These are both amazing, and I’d never read either. This is the great thing about this practice of putting the request out to the wide world: you get back beautiful words you didn’t know were out there. Thank you!
What interesting discoveries here. I’d never even heard of B.H. Fairchild and “A Dream of Trees” is new to me. One more to share, which I’ve read hundreds of times and find strangely consoling despite the subject matter, is Raymond Carver’s autobiographical poem, “What the Doctor Said.”
He said it doesn’t look good
he said it looks bad in fact real bad
he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before
I quit counting them
I said I’m glad I wouldn’t want to know
about any more being there than that
he said are you a religious man do you kneel down
in forest groves and let yourself ask for help
when you come to a waterfall
mist blowing against your face and arms
do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments
I said not yet but I intend to start today
he said I’m real sorry he said
I wish I had some other kind of news to give you
I said Amen and he said something else
I didn’t catch and not knowing what else to do
and not wanting him to have to repeat it
and me to have to fully digest it
I just looked at him
for a minute and he looked back it was then
I jumped up and shook hands with this man who’d just given me
something no one else on earth had ever given me
I may have even thanked him habit being so strong
Rona–That is great. I love Carver. His “Late Fragment” was one of the poems I had read at my wedding:
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
The other reading, which I also love, even though I am pretty emphatically non-religious, is a prayer from a 17th century English mystic/poet/philosopher named Thomas Traherne. It speaks to what I think of when I think of the possibility of faith, and if I replace God with Love/Nature, it works for me.
You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.
Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels: till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all ages as with your walk and table: till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made: till you love men so as to desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own: till you delight in God for being good to all: you never enjoy the world. Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are more present in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beauties there, than in your own house: till you remember how lately you were made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it: and more rejoice in the palace of your glory, than if it had been made but to-day morning.
At the wedding, my matron of honor read the Traherne, and the best man, who read the Carver poem, felt that he’d been gypped a bit due to the brevity of his reading. But in this case, quality trumps quantity, for sure.
Oh Paige, Late Fragment is one of my ultimate favourites… I have Carver’s Collected Works on my nightstand.
What a beautiful rich post this is… so many precious jewels shared. Poetry is particularly important to humanists; maybe that is why it is so important in the country I come from. We revere our poets, people still read books of poetry on the trams, and being able to recite poetry is (or was in the ’80s, during my youth) important in a conquest. There was even a series of 4 or 5 movies, starting with How the World Loses its Poets, How Poets Come to Lose Their Illusions, and How the World Tastes to Poets.
Two of my favourites are Jaroslave Seifert’s Autobiography, which needs to be read with an awareness of the context (i.e., life under German occupation, communism and Soviet occupation), and Michael Ondaatje’s Cinnamon Peeler.
Autobiography
Sometimes
when she would talk about herself
my mother would say:
My life was sad and quiet,
I always walked on tip-toe.
But if I got a little angry
and stamped my foot
the cups, which had been my mother’s,
would tinkle on the dresser
and make me laugh.
At the moment of my birth, so I am told,
a butterfly flew in by the window
and settled on my mother’s bed,
but that same moment a dog howled in the yard.
My mother thought
it a bad omen.
My life of course has not been quite
as peaceful as hers.
But even when I gaze upon our present days
with wistfulness
as if at empty picture frames
and all I see is a dusty wall,
still it has been so beautiful.
There are many moments
I cannot forget,
moments like radiant flowers
in all possible colours and hues,
evenings filled with fragrance
like purple grapes
hidden in the leaves of darkness.
With passion I read poetry
and loved music
and blundered, ever surprised,
from beauty to beauty.
But when I first saw
the picture of a woman nude
I began to believe in miracles.
My life unrolled swiftly.
It was too short
for my vast longings,
which had no bounds.
Before I knew it
my life’s end was drawing near.
Death soon will kick open my door
and enter.
With startled terror I’ll catch my breath
and forget to breathe again.
May I not be denied the time
once more to kiss the hands
of the one who patiently and in step with me
walked on and on and on
and who loved most of all.
The Cinnamon Peeler
If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.
Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.
Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler’s wife.
I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
– your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers…
When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said
this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter’s wife, the lime burner’s daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.
and knew
what good is it
to be the lime burner’s daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.
You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler’s wife. Smell me.
p.s. I just wanted to add that it is a privilege to meet you Rona — I always loved your editorials.
Love all these great poems, and it is such a powerful reminder that great words can truly inspire and connect us all.
What a beautiful idea. I wish your sister-friend love and hope, and am glad that she knows where to find it. I like W.H. Auden; to me his dry, simple wit unfolds slowly, running deeper as you need it, and soon you’re carrying a talisman full of words. Hope it helps.
The More Loving One, by W.H. Auden
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
Marilyn–I love Auden, too. For years when I worked out of the home, I kept a volume of Yeats and one of Auden in my cubicle and later in my officies, just to remind me, I suppose, that there was more to life than the corporate world around me. It helped! I didn’t know this particular poem, though, and I’m so glad (and thankful to you) to have discovered it!
Here is a little something from a less well known corner that has been important to me:
Benedicere
by Ken Sehested
May your home always be too
small to hold all your friends.
May your heart remain ever supple,
fearless in the face of threat,
jubilant in the grip of grace.
May your hands remain open,
caressing, never clinched,
save to pound the doors
of all who barter justice
to the highest bidder.
May your heroes be earthy,
dusty-shoed and rumpled,
hallowed but unhaloed,
guiding you through seasons
of tremor and travail, apprenticed
to the godly art of giggling
amid haggard news and
portentous circumstance.
May your hankering be
in rhythm with heaven’s,
whose covenant vows a dusty
intersection with our own:
when creation’s hope and history rhyme.
May hosannas lilt from your lungs:
God is not done;
God is not yet done.
All flesh, I am told, will behold;
will surely behold.
New Year’s Day 2005
Ken Sehested is co-pastor of Circle of Mercy Congregation and a stonemason in Asheville, North Carolina. The first stanza of this poem, which inspired the composition, is a traditional Irish blessing. The line “when hope and history rhyme” is taken from a Seamus Heaney poem titled “On the far side of revenge.” Benedicere, a Latin word, means “to bless.”
What an important and thoughtful piece, Paige. For those who might wish to assemble online versions of a commonplace, http://www.poets.org has new feature called notebooks with which you can create online anthologies to share. People have also made special notebooks for friends. http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/544
Monika–I forgot to say that I love those poems, and knew neither. The Ondaatje in particular is so evocative and sexy–just a gorgeous and transportive (is that a word??) poem.
Lee–thanks for coming by. Now if I could get you to share some of YOUR poetry….xx
Deb–Thank you for sharing Ken Sehested’s work–otherwise unknown to me. I particularly love “may your heroes be earthy”–a great reminder to value substance over shine.
Nicie–Everyone, meet the treasured matron of honor :-) who knows more about poetry and poets than anyone I know. Poets. org is an incredible site, and I encourage all of you who love this most magical use of language to visit there!
Jaroslav Seifert (sorry about the typo!) won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1984, and if I am not mistaken, Autobiography is one of the poems he submitted for the acceptance speech (which he was too ill to make, and so was spoken on his behalf by his daughter).
Last night, my friend Petina regaled me with stories of her recent encounter with Michael Ondaatje, my favourite writer, living or dead. He flirted and hugged and kissed… (I am green with envy).
Well, not always Emily Dickenson. I remember going to the book section of a Goodwill store with you one morning on an outing where we bought a volume of Edna St Vincent Milay’s poetry and a very old “Original Mother Goose” so I could read something different and you might have a new source of inspiration. It didn’t last long – Milay’s poems were not appropriate for young ears and I am still shocked at the violence in the original “Mother Goose”.
Thank you, Nicie, for the link about online poetry notebooks. For all you Mary Oliver fans, here’s another link, to a lovely New York Times piece about visiting her haunts around Provincetown, which have inspired her for decades. http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/travel/05oliver.html?8dpc
Monika–Thanks for the Ondaatje gossip, and the reminder to order Petina’s book!
Chloe, aka my Mom–thanks for chiming in and setting the history straight.
Rona–I adore this article. There’s a wonderful Mary Oliver quote in it (actually, there are many of them) but I wanted to share this one here:
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
Ah, poetry. It is a blessing.
Okay, so I am now copying all of the above-mentioned poems into my journal, which, until today, I did not know was commonplace!
How wonderful!
Thanks, ladies.
~Mad(elyn)
When the Day came –
The Day I had lived and died for –
The Day that is not in any calendar –
Clouds heavy with love
Showered me with wild abundance.
Inside me, my soul was drenched.
Around me, even the desert grew green.
– Kabir
Lovely how a book of thoughts, ideas, and poems could be called, “commonplace.” I have mine, started in adolescence, never knowing it had a name, either. This is such a beautiful conversation, and I’ll add the lines I was struggling to remember at the mirror this morning, after a strange dream of going back in time. (And who among us isn’t a little fascinated with Ondaatje now?)
HOLIDAYS
The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows;—
The happy days unclouded to their close;
The sudden joys that out of darkness start
As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are;—a Fairy Tale
Of some enchanted land we know not where,
But lovely as a landscape in a dream.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
May the long time sun
Shine upon you,
All love surround you,
And the pure light within you
Guide your way on.