The Sherman reading got me thinking about what kind of books I feel okay defacing.  Most any book I buy, I deface with my thoughts, unless it’s an art book or something pricey like that.  Library books, though, sometimes stop me.  But not always.  I think it has something to do with the artistic value I place on the book.  I recently marked up a critical companion to contemporary poetry, with absolutely no remorse, probably because criticism doesn’t seem like art, and the next book will replace it in a few years.  Maybe it’s respect for art that stops me, like the graffiti writers who aren’t supposed to tag up others artists’ pieces.

For a few days now, I’ve been resisting the urge to write inside of H.D.’s Notes on thought and Vision.  It’s Literature.  She wrote it in 1919 and City Lights published it in 1982.  The cover is pretty.  An ochre yellow Sappho seared upon a blue so midnight it’s also black.  I’d feel guilty writing in it.

The inside is pretty too.  And, the book is tiny, which makes the considered offense seem even more obscene.  The printed area of the page is 3×5, at most.  I find tiny things more attractive, for some reason.  But I really want to write in it, because I like it, and because it also pisses me off.  So, I took a picture of one of the pages and put it into paint, so I could do as I please.  The little circles are also pleasing.

I had to use the eraser tool, because the pencil tool wouldn’t show up on the darkened pages, so this took me a while.  And, my forearm cramped.  I went slowly, and probably spent more time feeling more strongly in response to the things H.D. wrote.  I wonder if people who wrote with quills and other slow writing utensils had a heightened relationship with the texts they wrote in.  As I wrote this, I realized I wouldn’t want to write these things in a library book because they’re embarrassing.  The things I write inside of a critical companion to poetry are not as personal or silly.  They’re more cerebral, perhaps even useful to future readers– more useful than the crazytalk I’ve bestowed upon you guys here–an even more public forum.  But the internet is almost un-defaceable, with some exceptions, maybe like screwing up wikipedia entries or something like that.  It’s more like the internet helps people deface themselves, while the internet itself remains impervious.