Make Marginalia

Make notes while you are reading in the margin. This was sacrilegious to me at first but soon it helped me analyse poetry and highlight lines I liked.

It’s turns reading from an passive process into Active-Reading.

I highlight what I like by underlining, then ask myself questions about the writing. What are they doing and how do they achieve their effect? It gives you techniques to feed into your own work when Editing-A-Poem.

Underline bits that are meaningful to you. Scrawl brief notes in the margins. Draw mustaches on faces. These pages are no more sacred than your thoughts about and additions to them you’re part of the process now. Tracing the Lines Magazine no 2 autumn 2023