Spine Poetry

My former teaching colleague posted this on Facebook---Spine Poetry in honor of April being Poetry Month.   You pick books, stack them and voila--poetry.  "You are not so smart, Thinking, fast and slow, This will make you smarter."

So, I wanted to do it, using one of my friend's books: "The Red Tent, The Red Desk, The Crimson Petal and the White: Mind Games".

 This was my first attempt---the bottom two books were easy, but finding the right first book was the hard part:  "The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, When Elephants Weep."

This one proves you can get a great grouping, but if the books are the wrong size, or the writing goes the wrong way on the spine, the effect is not as good:  The Fatal Shore, Check-out Time, The Reckoning:  Ashes to Ashes.

I am only using books that were found on my book shelves: "The War of the Worlds:  A Thousand Splendid Suns, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil."

I wanted one that had a local flavor---Tower Grove Park---my favorite park.  I was so lucky to have grown up across the street from it:  "Then Sings My Soul:  Walking in Tower Grove Park, Where We Live."

I decided the books should reflect me and my reading interests, so I came up with "Slaves in the Family---I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  Bitter Harvest."  Now, sometimes the tricky part is getting them in the right order.  Maybe I should have ended with "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings".

This is one which reflects my love of history, plays on words and my sometimes random grouping of ideas.

I decided to see if I could come up with some DVD poetry: "Finding Nemo? Off limits. O, Brother, Where are thou?  Finding Neverland. . . ."  Somehow, more thought provoking than I thought I could get with our large collection of Disney, Sci Fi and History collection.

Now, that I've cleaned off my book shelves, maybe I need to set some aside for the ABC Sale at church. . . .