May 9, 2014

POETRY FRIDAY: Book Spine Poetry

Thanks to Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup for hosting Poetry Friday today!
 
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I have been out of the blogging loop the last few weeks, but for a good reason—I have been pushing through the last stages of a major revision of one of my manuscripts. This whole rewrite has taken me around six months, and then about a month ago I had to make a few more structural changes. I’ve always loved the revision process and this one has really stretched me as a writer. I’m looking forward to getting feedback from a few trusted writer friends, doing a final revision, and then sending my manuscript along its merry way. But more than anything I am looking forward to working on my next book—it feels so good to know that will happen SOON! ☺

To celebrate all things BOOKS, I thought I would share some book spine poetry today! Book spine poems are created by gathering different books and stacking them so that the titles create a poem. This is a very creative, free, and flexible type of poetry!

In preparation for a poetry lesson that I presented to some fifth graders a few weeks ago, I visited my local library and set to work creating a few book spine poems of my own. Here is an example of a book spine poem I created using picture books:

And here is one I “wrote” using titles of Newbery Award winning books:
 
The kids were so excited about this poetic format—one class even took a trip to their school library to create book spine poems of their own! As I shared with the kids, book spine poetry can quickly wreak havoc upon a library’s organizational system. To circumnavigate this problem, I used several of the books on the “to be shelved” cart and then was careful to keep track of where I found the others so I could return everything at the end of my “writing session.”

Try creating your own book spine poem sometime soon. This unique creative process engages a slightly different writing muscle than straightforward writing, and is a lot of fun!
Happy Friday, and Happy Writing!

10 comments:

  1. Fun spine poems, Becky! Congratulations on wrapping up your ms revisions. That must feel pretty darn good.

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  2. Great book spine poems, Becky. Especially love the first one with the foodie titles :).

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  3. Oh, I bet the kids did love this! I wonder how many went home and showed their parents. =) Spine poetry is a lot of fun.

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  4. Ohmigosh, that's a brilliant idea. I love it! And your poems are excellent. I love "pizza for the queen" in the birthday poem and scorpions singing down the moon in the other. I will go share this with my poetry group immediately and look forward to what I see in spines.

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  5. Congratulations on the revisions and a new project on the horizon!!!! Wonderful spine poetry ... esp. loved the Newbery one.

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  6. Spine poems do flex different mental muscles, don't they? They're like puzzles, in a way.
    How lucky you are to love the revision process! It's such a vital part of the work, but sometimes overlooked.
    Best of luck as you begin your new project :-)

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  7. Very fun! I adore the Newbery poem!

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  8. Hi there Becky, glad to hear that you students enjoyed doing the book spine poetry too - we love doing this as well. So much fun.

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  9. I just love book spine poetry. Thanks for sharing yours. And congrats on completing your manuscript!

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  10. THANK YOU, everyone, for all of your comments! Time got away from me (again) but I wanted to let you all know that I read and appreciate your input! = ) I am looking forward to writing more Book Spine poetry soon!

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