Field Notes. A Blog of Story, Place & Ideas

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Welcome to “Field Notes: A Journal of Story, Place, and Ideas.”

“The moon and sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”

That quote is from Matsuo Basho in Sam Hamill’s translation of “A Narrow Road to the Interior” published by Shambhala Books in 1991. Basho is one of my role models – a wandering poet in 17th century Japan. Basho’s practice at the end of every day was to make note of what he saw and heard, who he met, gossip, weather, and landscape. He used these observations to write his poems.

Basho was continuing a tradition from the 11th century maintained primarily by
Japanese women—the nikki, or “day book.” Contemporary poet Andrew Schelling calls this practice a “peerless literary tradition based on the diary form.” Into it went observation of events, people, places visited, conversations overheard as well as natural history and local news.

Schelling talks about this practice being continued by Joanne Kyger, one of the early West Coast “Beat” poets. Kyger, who died last year, was an early wife of poet Gary Snyder and traveled with him and Allen Ginsberg to Japan and India. She’s spent significant time in Mexico and calls the writing journal her “casa,” her little home when she’s on the road.

All of this will be familiar to naturalists, journalists, and anthropologists who write up their field notes at the end of the day. Sailors keep logs as do lab scientists. And lots of writers and visual artists do their own versions, too. This is why I call my blog “Field Notes.”