This well-worn book traveled with me to waiting rooms and to the laundromat a few years back after my washing machine refused repair. I’ve made pencil sketches on many of the pages as i do when i make a book mine alone. I love David Whyte’s poetry and was happy to reacquaint myself with this book that has inspired many of my poems. His poetry is also for those who think they don’t understand poems.
I love your practice of drawing on the pages of a poetry book. Does anyone else do that?
I don’t know if anyone else does it and i have been doing it so long that i forget how it started. I was taught not to deface books at an early age and honored that until the last 20 or so years when i must have seen or read it. I owned a new, used, & rare bookshop from ’95 to ’05. that could explain where i saw it. I love doing that and i make notes in non-fiction margins and books i’ll be discussing with someone and need to find my thought. I only use pencil for sketches. Try it in reaction to what the poem means to you. Can you imagine 20 years from now when someone picks up your book and finds the sketches? what a bonus!!!! thanks for your comment.
One of the most important essays I read my freshman year of college was on the importance of marking the book you’re reading. Returning to those volumes years later always launches a dialogue not just between the author and me but also between the me of back then and the me of today.
I like that idea Jnana.