The Poetry Book as a Commonplace Book for Rhetorical Identification

Commonplaces books are rhetorical sites for memory making, meaning making, and private cultural and social identification. They provide the writer with a space to creatively consume their cultural and social identities. I agree with Foucault, that the commonplace book is a form of “therapy” for the individual (Lockridge 339). This statement resonated with me and brought up memories of the commonplace book I kept as a tween and teen—it was a book of poetry that helped me engage in self-reflection and creative identity construction.

I see poetry books as one of the oldest and most enjoyable forms of commonplace book keeping. The poetry book is further, a highly rhetorical situation in which the writer envisions an audience—often it is both an audience of self and an audience of other, such as a discourse community. There is always an element of persuasion in this process that involves a consideration of the audience’s attitudes and values, and the ethos of the author. Such attitudes and values are further considered by the poet and commonplace author in the Aristotelian sense “as all the available means of persuasion” (Burke 56). Whether we are conscious of this rhetorical situation or not—we are always trying to make a connection. We are looking to become “consubstantial”, which in Burke’s world is both a way by which the individual creates their sense of identity and a way by which the individual looks to connect or relate to others (46).

This bit of theory from Burke’s A Rhetoric of Motives sheds light on the persuasive process I underwent as a tween and teen in the creation of my poetry book. I constructed my own poems and clipped out and copied poems and music from other artists that helped me connect to discourse communities I wished to belong to.  Many of the poems I wrote and artists I identified with tended toward the resistance of normative female roles and helped me construct my emotional identity as a subject wanting to find myself in the creative consumption of “alternative” discourse communities I was drawn to. Thus, my poetry book provided me with a safe place to “rehearse” my public, social, and rhetorical self as it gave me a theraputic outlet to creatively explore and express my identifications (Lockridge 338).

My poetry book, was moreover, a way to record the shared contextual cultural memory of tween and teen girls in the mid-late 1990’s. Looking back at my poetry book now—it evokes memories of communities I belonged to, communities I had wished to belong to, dreams and aspirations I had, as well as ideologies and beliefs that were important to me and to the communities I was a part of.

Supplemental Reference

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkley: University of California Press, 1950. Print.