1. The note has long been one of my favorite literary forms. Unassuming and yet precise, as well as decisive, it offers the best way forward when a critical comment is needed for future reference. When appropriate, it can stretch to several pages, but a few paragraphs are often perfectly sufficient for a critical comment. Thus I often wonder why the note is not more popular among those in the know. Why go on and on about something when so much can be said in just a few carefully penned sentences?

2. Early on, I often stated in the title that the text under that followed was a note. “A note on,” the title would start. Later on, I shortened this expression by starting the title with the word “on” only. By and by, I dropped this word, too. And now I feel sorry to have dropped the three words so often. Which is why I plan to return to the format I used to use many years ago. The key paragraphs in the text would also start with a number, thus offering a clue as to the overall arrangement of the entire text.

Thinking about the note, I cannot but think of Montaigne’s essay as a literary form. By comparison, the term he chose is perhaps even more unassuming and thus endearing. It signifies but an attempt, no matter how successful. This I find most charming, indeed, but the note still attracts me much more than the essay as a literary form. The very term is punchier and less forgiving. What is more, it does not even suggest that it is a literary form. Just a note. Period. And that has always been very to my liking.

3. My Residua is a collection of texts that belong to a wide variety of literary forms. All of them brief, they span poetry and prose, as well. But the note is definitely among these nearly countless literary forms. It is time to bring it to the fore once again, as I already said. But there is one more reason for returning to it at this stage: organizing my thoughts in the form of a note gives me an enormous satisfaction all by itself. The pleasure is almost visceral. And it comes to its zenith when the note is eventually rounded off with flourish.

Addendum (May 11, 2014)

Eager to learn a bit more about the place that the note has played in my magnum opus, I just spent some time analyzing all the titles of my pieces written to this day. To my chagrin, titles that start with “a note on” are rather few: one in 1977, two in 1978, one in 1979, and this one in 2014. This amounts to five pieces all together. But titles that begin with “on” are quite a few. A small fraction of them use the word as a part of an expression, such as “on the road” or “on the sly,” but a vast majority of them are proper notes on a particular subject. All told, there are more than four-hundred of them. Interestingly, such titles appear more often in some years than in others. In this regard, 1980 and 1982 are quite noticeable. After a longish lull, 1996 and 1999 mark a return of the note, as it were. There are many of them in 2003 and 2007, and especially after 2011. As the last few years show, I am kind of returning to the note as a literary form. This I find very to my liking. And the note is here to stay, I promise.