Emily Dickinson Notebook

"Forever is composed of Nows" - Emily Dickinson

These artful notebooks are inspired by the timeless beauty of vintage French Cahiers. The classic design features weighty natural paper, rounded corners, and thirty two lined pages. They’re versatile enough to display as art objects, jot down your thoughts, or give as a practical, thoughtful gift.

ABOUT THE ART

Why is it that the most profound human truths are so often conveyed by the most eye-roll inducing, clichéd phrases? All you need is love! Live in the moment! Stop to smell the roses! Dickinson’s poetry always manages to end-run these dull platitudes and tackle the biggest, weightiest ideas.

In her poem Forever - is composed of Nows, she blitzes two of her favorites, time and mortality. We humans seem to have a unique capacity to contemplate the infinite expanse of "time." We codify it, and arrange our experience of the world along an imagined timeline: first there was then, now I am here, and tomorrow I will be there.

But useful as this ability is to human civilization (would there even be civilization without it?), it obscures a simple truth. Time is merely a series of "nows." Outside the scope of memory, there is only here and now. Dickinson’s poem explores this truth, and re-contextualizes “forever” as a stream of present tense experience.

In our illustration, this present tense is represented as a map pin, a temporal “latitude of home.” The “nows” flow along a path that winds its way forever, taking the form of a snake biting its own tail.

We honored Dickinson's capitalization of the word "Now" in the quotation.

• Size: 6.5 x 8.5 inches
• Proudly made in the USA
• Offset printed
• Cover: Partially recycled, natural white
• Inside: 32 pages, uncoated 80# natural paper
• Saddle stitched with matching staples