notebookish

English

Etymology

notebook +‎ -ish

Adjective

notebookish (comparative more notebookish, superlative most notebookish)

1. Characteristic of jottings in a notebook, rather than a finished artistic work.
   • 1991, Stand Magazine, volume 33, page 56:

     In some of the poems which discuss her predicament openly, the writing goes flat and notebookish.

   • 2004, Carmine Starnino, A Lover's Quarrel: Essays and Reviews, page 100:

     So it's not merely that Ioannou is using notebookish, intellectually inert, ashen-phrased poems to secure her insights about poetry; she's also using the face-value ideas of prosody to launder mediocre Canadian poetry into art.