Hello all,

I think it’s time to relax a bit and dive into the concept of found poetry, and revisit a topic last covered in 2014 by Sam Peralta namely book spine poetry. You can go back to the original post and find more details on its origin.

I will just repeat the simple rules here.

1. Go through your collection on books, and note the titles.
2. Sort them so the titles form a poem.
3. Take a photo of the books.
4. Write down the poem.

As often with found poetry, you will likely be frustrated at first and most likely you will come to the conclusion that though the titles provide a good backbone for the poem, you prefer to put some flesh to the bones.

So as an option I give you the possibility to write a second version where you add your own words to form a fuller poem.

To give you a very brief example from 2013:

beloved snow —
in the memory
of the forest

which is a very simple senryu, that can be expanded to:

my beloved –
your footprints in the snow
lingering
in the memory
of the forest

If you (like me) have more books in a second language, you can use that and translate the poem afterward.

If you have more records than books at home, I can see this being done with CD-cases as well.

When you are ready, post the picture and the poem to your blog and link it up below.
Remember to have fun, read, and comment.