Evidence

Having posted two poems in the last two days, claiming I had handwritten transcriptions of them in my notebook, I thought I should post some photographic evidence of said copies.

The notebook I’ve been using is a 2019 diary from Studio Milligram. I like their diaries – their A5 ‘non-diaries’ in particular, although I don’t actually use them as diaries – they serve as my commonplace book.

I like keeping a commonplace book, and I think I have a few completed ones (i.e. all the pages are filled) around the place. I write down quotes from books, things people say, headlines. Notes in the languages I know. Practice writing Chinese characters 因为我已经忘记怎么写很多字了¹。Lists of things I want to do as opposed to lists of things I have to do – things I have to do are in my Outlook calendar or in my work notebook. Lists of books I want to read. Lists of books compiled by other people e.g. “Best crime novels in 2023”. And poems. When I look through it, I realise there are many poems in my commonplace book.

1. “because I’ve forgotten how to write lots of Chinese characters”. It’s a thing: even native speakers are forgetting how to handwrite Chinese because they’re getting so used to using keyboards instead ↩︎