Poetic Mind Tip # 4 : Keep a Notebook

Thanks to elephant for publishing my poem "On the Island of Recollection." While culling old journals in December (an annual ritual) I found the poem scribbled on a final page. It needed some reworking. Since I had started the poem years ago, I've written about rubber boots and read Krishnamurti's writings on memory and Lewis Hyde's on gifts. All that ended up in the poem, this time around. 

This leads me to...

Poetic Mind Tip #4: Keep a notebook. 

It doesn't have to be a journal or diary, meaning you don't need to write in it daily. But keep a pad handy, jot down ideas, let them sit, and reread them occasionally. You may find an idea you want to pursue. There are lots of great books on journaling. Kay Adams's Journal to the Self is one. And I recommend Terry Tempest Williams's When Women Were Birds for an unusual perspective on journal keeping and the creative self.