Alice Meynell's Poems - A 1913 Collection

Recently I found a new delight at the book shop. I was arms deep in a second hand poetry table at The Strand, and I pulled out this unnassuming olive green volume:

I liked its pious, Victorian poems filled with straightforward rhyming couplets and floral imagery - this era of poetry really speaks to me for some reason, very schoolhouse to me - but what really excited me was the discovery that this book was signed - in 1914 - by Alice Meynell herself.

I was like, oh, yeah, I gotta buy this. And it was a modest $10. Perfect. A new treasure for me.

There's also a lovely portrait of her by John Singer Sargent which greets you as you open the book, drawn in 1894. I love how rough and thick those pencil lines are.

Here's one of my favourite poems (so far) from this collection:

 

AN UNMARKED FESTIVAL

 There's a feast undated, yet
    Both our true lives hold it fast,—
Even the day when first we met.
    What a great day came and passed,
    —Unknown then, but known at last.

And we met: You knew not me,
    Mistress of your joys and fears;
Held my hand that held the key
    Of the treasure of your years,
    Of the fountain of your tears.

For you knew not it was I,
    And I knew not it was you.
We have learnt, as days went by.
    But a flower struck root and grew
    Underground, and no one knew.

Day of days! Unmarked it rose,
    In whose hours we were to meet;
And forgotten passed. Who knows,
    Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet,
    At the coming of your feet?

One mere day, we thought; the measure
    Of such days the year fulfils.
Now, how dearly would we treasure
    Something from its fields, its rills,
    And its memorable hills.

The Best Prop Ever Made: Red Dragon's Journal

Recently I watched the movie Red Dragon, and we can forget about every single aspect of this movie right now aside from the one thing I was in complete awe of: the journal.

After the movie's intro, we're treated to one of those beautiful '00s opening credit sequences, and this one is laid over extensive shots of the one prop that they truly went crazy for: Red Dragon's own gorgeous, scribbly journal. There are so many pages, it's so thick, and it's just so nicely arranged. I am taking huge inspiration from the neatly arranged newspaper cuttings, sinister medical woodcuts, and perfectly scrawled thoughts in pen. This guy would've have been a Tumblr darling in 2008, most certainly. And for that, I'm more inclined to support his crimes.

I love the way clippings are overlaid on some of these pages - many have a picture in the centre of this huge page, surrounded on all sides by handwriting, and I like that layout a lot, how it conveys a singular focus and feels somehow more chaotic and intense than it might if the image was placed at the top, or top-left, of the page. It just feels more serious, more prominent to the eye. I love that.

There's a neatness to the arrangements of these pages, but still you can feel the frenetic, hurried energy of them. The way the handwriting fills up every tiny space, to the edge and in some cases over the top of the pasted in clippings, perfectly communicates a certain feverishness. There's a great sense of layout that is ultimately just the base for the unchecked ink ramblings of the guy. It's such a great object.

Again, the neatness, and the consideration of layout is clear when you look at each page here, but there are lots of little rough details that bring it back to feeling super real, and like a genuine document of thought - like the torn edges of this headline:

I would love to flip my greasy little fingers through the actual prop. In any case, it's a fantastic bit of inspiration for my journals. I might start collecting more newspapers.