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Book Spine Poetry

By Glynn Young 30 Comments

You wander around your library, or your basement, or your living room or den, all those places you have books. You look at titles, occasionally pull out a volume, recall something that brings a smile, like The Man Who Died Twice by Samuel Peeples, the subject of my first published book review way back in 1976 (and I got paid for it, too). 

I wander around the upstairs bedroom at my house that holds eight, rather filled bookshelf units. Oh, and there is that tall bookshelf in my home office (another bedroom), and another shelf in a third bedroom, and that single shelf above my computer, and the four shelves, no, five shelves, in the basement. I’ll meander among the titles, touching one here, recalling another there, like the old friends they are. 

What I never realized was that I have a massive collection of improv poetry staring me in the face. 

Maria Popova at Brain Pickings has started a series of book spine poetry posts doing exactly that – assembling book titles that form poems, photographing them, and posting them. She calls it “Book Spine Poetry, ” and she credits Nina Katchadourian at Sorted Books for the idea. The one pictured above is entitled “New York” and is the third in Popova’s series. 

Of course, it’s not exactly improv poetry. It’s more “almost improv poetry.” You have to do some work to find titles that lend themselves to the idea of a poem and fit together. 

I tried one at home, and used these titles: 

Farewell, I’m bound to leave you.
As I lay dying,
the heart aroused
the everlasting man,
the man who knew too much,
the man who died twice.
I am one of you forever. 

The first line is a book by Fred Chappell. The second is Faulkner. The third is David Whyte. The fourth and fifth are G.K. Chesterton. The next one is my friend Samuel Peeples, noted above. And the last is another title by Fred Chappell. 

I discovered that it’s easier – far easier – when you use business books. Business publishers like to use action verbs in titles; the literary set leans to nouns, phrases and rather dreamy sentences. (I’ll be posting one using business titles at my blog later this morning.) 

But try to see what poetry is waiting for you, staring at you each day from your bookshelf. We’ll have a project coming in August on this. A month of Rain poetry, on the spines, if you can find water in words.

In the meantime, I’m going to try it using only titles by Charles Dickens (he liked nouns, unfortunately for this purpose) and Mark Twain. 

We could be creating an entire cottage industry here. Or at least a few pages on Pinterest. But certainly a lot of fun. 

Photo by Maria Popova. Used with permission. Maria Popova is “an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who also writes for Wired UK and The Atlantic, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.” Post by Glynn Young, author of Dancing Priest. 

—–

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Glynn Young
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Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
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Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • Looking for the Poetry in Vermeer, a Blockbuster of an Art Exhibition - March 17, 2023
  • An Updated Take on Keats’s Odes by Anahid Nersessian - March 14, 2023
  • In Praise of Small Museums - March 7, 2023

Filed Under: article, Cento Poems, poetry, Themed Writing Projects

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Comments

  1. Donna says

    July 24, 2012 at 8:57 am

    LOL! Oh this is fun!!! I’m definitely in! Gotta run now… I have books to grab from my shelves!

    Reply
    • Donna says

      July 24, 2012 at 1:12 pm

      what if
      you are here
      beyond fear

      your sixth sense
      out of the woods
      naked, drunk, and writing

      Reply
      • Glynn says

        July 24, 2012 at 4:07 pm

        Naked, Drunk, and Writing is a poem all by itself.

        Reply
        • Donna says

          July 24, 2012 at 4:50 pm

          ha ha! you said a mouthful! AND it’s a wonderful book for writers! a great follow up for me to the Artist’s Way. I guess wine and clothing are optional, but the writing is a must! 🙂 by Adair Lara Ever seen it?

          Reply
  2. Maureen Doallas says

    July 24, 2012 at 9:49 am

    This is such a fun prompt, and I have just the books for it. Will plan to post a few in August. But here’s one based on some of the business books in my writing room:

    A Whack on the Side of the Head —
    Thought in Contagion, Fragments of Reality:
    The Art of Memory
    Waking Up

    Reply
  3. Jody Collins says

    July 24, 2012 at 11:09 am

    Sounds fun! I’m in. will be perusing the piles for August.

    Reply
  4. Gail Sheffer says

    July 24, 2012 at 2:11 pm

    Spirit Healing
    Nature’s Way
    All He Ever Wanted
    For the Common Good

    Reply
    • Donna says

      July 24, 2012 at 4:08 pm

      awesome! :O)

      Reply
  5. L. L. Barkat says

    July 24, 2012 at 2:31 pm

    Glynn, this article is delightful. I love the delayed-improv thing. Yeah, not quite like a Twitter poetry party, right? (speaking of which, I need to plan one 🙂

    This is on my counter right now, in this order. Pure improv:

    “The Education of Millionaires”

    Uncertainty
    harvesting fog—
    delicate machinery suspended.

    Reply
    • Glynn says

      July 24, 2012 at 4:06 pm

      Harvesting Fog is Luci Shaw’s poems. Delicate Machinery Suspended is Ann Oversterrt’s poems. Is Uncertainty the Jonathan Fields book?

      Reply
      • L. L. Barkat says

        July 25, 2012 at 9:26 am

        ‘Tis 🙂

        Reply
  6. Kimberlee Conway Ireton says

    July 24, 2012 at 4:36 pm

    Maria Popova inspired me to write book spine poetry back in April. It was so much fun. Here are a few I found on my shelves:

    “The Great Divorce”

    Are women human?
    A good man is hard to find.

    ***

    Sacred rhythms
    rest
    where the mountain meets the moon

    ***

    Inside out,
    creation waits
    till we have faces.
    The power and the glory
    sing a new song.

    ***

    Harlots of the desert
    breathe
    silence,
    the green earth.

    ***

    So excited for the August Rain play. I’ll have to do a poem with Rumors of Water and Walking on Water and A Syllable of Water. (Why do my three favorite writing books all have water in the title?)

    Thanks for the chance to share these, Glynn!

    Reply
    • L. L. Barkat says

      July 25, 2012 at 9:28 am

      Kimberlee, these are pure poetry. You sure know how to find a good spine 🙂

      Reply
  7. Sandra Heska King says

    July 24, 2012 at 4:43 pm

    This sounds like something even my currently overtaxed mind could handle.

    Reply
  8. Maureen Doallas says

    July 24, 2012 at 5:25 pm

    Just wrote this one:

    Barbies in communion,
    God in the yard.
    Contingency plans
    rumors of water.
    Delicate machinery suspended
    the whipping club
    inside out.

    All but the last are T.S. Poetry titles.

    Reply
  9. Monica Sharman says

    July 24, 2012 at 6:27 pm

    Seventeen books, three poems:
    http://monicasharman.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/book-spine-poetry/

    Reply
  10. Cindee Snider Re says

    July 24, 2012 at 11:44 pm

    This is great fun! Here’s the link to my three favorite attempts from this afternoon:
    http://breathedeeply.org/2012/07/24/book-spine-poetry/

    Enjoy!

    Reply
    • Donna says

      July 25, 2012 at 11:15 am

      Wonderful!!! The poems, and the images… such fun.

      Reply
  11. davis says

    July 25, 2012 at 1:28 am

    august…hey, that’s coming right up!

    Reply
  12. ljdowns says

    July 27, 2012 at 7:28 am

    What a glorious idea! I haven’t had this much fun in a very long time (not sure what that says about me!)Who would’ve thought a poem could made from an author salad that mixes classics like C.S. Lewis, Dickens, Wharton, Chesterton and Poe with newbies like James Patterson, Higgins,Wally Lamb and James Frey? Here’s mine, including one of my favorite book titles ever as the poem title:

    A Grief Observed

    Bleak house born of silence
    the age of innocence
    a heart of darkness
    spectacular sins
    a plague of secrets

    Now you see her
    a descent into the maelstron
    avowals and denials
    she’s come undone
    a million little pieces

    Now you see her
    up from the blue
    choosing to see
    a distant memory
    the wolf at the door

    Now you see her
    bring up the bodies
    salvage the Bones
    strong in the broken places
    Fly away home

    Reply
  13. Judie Ingram McMath says

    July 27, 2012 at 11:37 am

    Here is my first attempt:

    Heart and Hands
    Touching
    Molecules of Emotion
    I Love You Rituals
    Ask and It Is Given
    Female Power
    Hard Labor
    To Touch the Sky

    And the link with picture:
    http://www.unhinderedliving.com/bookspinepoems.html

    Reply
  14. Connie Mace says

    July 28, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    Ohhh I like this!

    From the spines:

    the pursuit of GOD
    walking in the dust of Rabbi JESUS
    dust and diamond
    the scent of water
    to live again…

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Book Spine Poetry | Know-Love-Obey God says:
    July 24, 2012 at 6:26 pm

    […] poems for Tweetspeak’s book spine poetry project. […]

    Reply
  2. Book Spine Poetry | Breathe Deeply says:
    July 24, 2012 at 11:40 pm

    […] I’d give the new challenge at Tweetspeak Poetry at try, and found myself completely absorbed! The challenge is to find poetry in book titles. Being […]

    Reply
  3. August Rain: Introduction (and a bit of spiney poetry) | TweetSpeak Poetry says:
    August 6, 2012 at 8:01 am

    […] can’t dance, so I look to my bookcase remembering Glynn Young’s spine poetry piece and I figure on a different kind of conjuring. From the spines of the books compose a sort of […]

    Reply
  4. This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks | TweetSpeak Poetry says:
    August 9, 2012 at 8:05 am

    […] Scholastic got wind of Tweetspeak’s August Rain and Book Spine Poetry project. Well, maybe they didn’t hear it from Tweetspeak. Maybe they picked it up from the […]

    Reply
  5. August Rain: The Decisive Moment | TweetSpeak Poetry says:
    August 13, 2012 at 8:36 am

    […]  This month, we will take our cues from book spines (see Glynn’s piece for more information). Look through your personal collection, the aisles at your local bookstore, […]

    Reply
  6. August Rain: Stormy Weather | TweetSpeak Poetry says:
    August 20, 2012 at 8:52 am

    […]  This month, we will take our cues from book spines (see Glynn’s piece for more information). Look through your personal collection, the aisles at your local bookstore, […]

    Reply
  7. August Rain: Morose Mother Goose | TweetSpeak Poetry says:
    August 27, 2012 at 8:57 am

    […]  This month, we will take our cues from book spines (see Glynn’s piece for more information). Look through your personal collection, the aisles at your local bookstore, […]

    Reply
  8. Poetry Prompt: Song Title Poetry - Tweetspeak Poetry says:
    December 6, 2021 at 5:01 am

    […] easy and fun to start off the month? I’m sure you’ve heard of fridge magnet poetry, and spine poetry is popular as well. How about song title poetry? It could be that I made it up, but nevertheless, […]

    Reply

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