Book Spine Poetry

Sometimes when you’re feeling tired or uninspired and you need to
find your creativity, you can find it in unexpected places…

A few years ago I discovered Book Spine Poetry and had a go. This week, after meltdowns and shutdowns I needed to recover my imagination and found it on my bookshelves!

Poems can be long or short – whatever you choose – just grab a few titles and see what you can conjure up.

An inspector calls love in the present tense,
reasons to stay alive.

(J.B. Priestley, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Matt Haig)

Across the wall – I capture the castle,
the castle of adventure.

(Garth Nix, Dodie Smith, Enid Blyton)

How to stop time, 
just one look, second star to the right, 
and a Hatfull of Sky.
The slow regard of silent things, linger…
Hold tight.

(Matt Haig, Harlan Coben, Deborah Hautzig, Terry Pratchett, Patrick Rothfuss, Maggie Stiefvater, Harlan Coben)

Snow sisters linger, before I die…

(Carol Lovekin, Maggie Stiefvater, Jenny Downham)

The ice dragon,
catching fire,
falling across the wall,
looking for Alaska…

(G.R.R. Martin, Suzanne Collins, Sharon Dogar, Garth Nix, John Green)

If I stay…
Tell no one.

(Gayle Forman, Harlan Coben)

Tell me what’s on your bookshelves and make poetry…

Give it a go.

 

Book Spine Poetry

Today, I discovered #BookSpinePoetry for the first time courtesy of The Conclave of Sappho…and decided to give it a try. I not only had fun perusing my bookcases and shelves, but I rediscovered old books, new books, borrowed books, books I’d forgotten about and books I can’t wait to read or re-read!

My first go gave me this:

The fearless fire-eaters looking for Alaska,
Stand a little taller across the wall…

(Emma Pass, David Almond, John Green, Gordon B. Hinckley, and Garth Nix)

What I was, impossible stardust, 
How I live now, beneath the distant star,
Falling, before I die…

(Meg Rosoff, Nancy Werlin, Neil Gaiman, Meg Rosoff,
Lisa Shambrook, Sharon Dogar, Jenny Downham)

After the first death, 
If I stay, 
Linger, forever…

(Robert Cormier, Gayle Forman, Maggie Stiefvater, Judy Blume)

I capture the castle beneath the rainbow,
under the greenwood tree, across the wall,
through the looking glass, when no one was looking…

(Dodie Smith, Lisa Shambrook, Thomas Hardy, Garth Nix, C.S. Lewis, Rosemary Wells)

What’s on your bookshelf and what poetry can you make? 

Pop over to Millie’s blog post on The Conclave of Sappho
and check out her beautiful bookspine poem 
and then have a go yourself! 

Feel free to share your poems in the comments below…
(I want to know what’s on your bookshelf too!)