Poem-A-Day 2021, Day 27: Book Spine Poetry

On April 27, 2021 By angeliquejamailIn book spine poem, book spine poetry, books, National Poetry Month, poetry2 Comments

One of my favorite kinds of found poetry is the Book Spine Poem. Tonight I made one entirely out of a few of the poetry books in my personal library.

If you’re not familiar with this form, the idea is to make a poem out of the titles of books. Once you see one, it’s perhaps easier to get the idea. So here’s mine (with my arranged and punctuated text below):

original love
the currency:

poisoned apples,
stolen mummies,
exchangeable bonds —

in danger,
we put things in our mouths.

lay back the darkness:
ungodliness,
the resurrection trade,
footnotes in the order of disappearance…

shipbreaking
joyful noise!

asunder:
the magic my body becomes!

yesterday had a man in it.

the dream songs:
dance dance revolution.

***

Have you made any Book Spine Poems lately? Want to make one? Feel free to share yours in the comments below.

National Poetry Month — Day 1

On April 1, 2016 By angeliquejamailIn book spine poem, book spine poetry, books, Harlan Howe, Poem-A-Day, school, Uncategorized5 Comments

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you know that during National Poetry Month I like to do some sort of month-long celebration of verse. Sometimes it has taken the form of a poem contest. The last couple of years, I’ve curated a Poem-a-Day series, which has been hugely fun. This year I want to do a little of this, a little of that, to reflect the enormous variety of things to appreciate about poetry. I will never be able to present everything in a month, but that’s okay.

Today will be the first of probably a fair few Book Spine Poems, because I love them. If you’ve not heard of this phenomenon before, BSPs are found poems made by putting the titles on the spines of books together. Every year at my school, the librarian and I sponsor a Book Spine Poetry Contest for the high school students, and frequently one of our teachers, IT wizard Harlan Howe, “primes the pump” on the first day with a BSP of his own. They’re usually really, really good and so entertaining, and this year’s is no exception.

20160401_100344 — good news for a change / everlasting / geek love / pushing the limits / i am the messenger / out of nowhere / girls like us

I’d love to know what you’re doing for National Poetry Month, if anything. If you’d like to share your own poems with me and possibly have them show up here on my blog (I still have a few spots for this month left open), please email me at forest.of.diamonds@gmail.com with your poem and the subject line “Poem-a-Day series” so it doesn’t get lost in my inbox or spam filter.

Happy Poetry Month!

Featured Poet: Me (Sort Of)

On April 11, 2014 By angeliquejamailIn book spine poem, National Poetry Month, poetryLeave a comment

Tonight I want to share with you a Book Spine Poem I composed for my school’s library contest. Mine is not an entry, but just a sample to show the students what the idea of a Book Spine Poem is. I made this one from some of the random discarded novels from the library that I’d moved into my classroom for the kids to read if they wanted.