Great minds think alike in the blogging world: last week, on the very day that Annabel posted a book spine poem, it was on my to-do list to assemble my current reading stack into a poem or two. I’d spotted some evocative and provocative titles, as well as some useful prepositions. The poems below, then, serve as a snapshot of what I’m reading at the moment, with some others from my set aside and occasional reading shelves filling in. You get a glimpse of the variety I read. (For one title in the second pile, a poetry book I’m reading on my e-reader, I had to improvise!)
My previous book spine poetry efforts are here and here (2016); and here (March 2020).
A dark one, imagining an older woman in serious condition and passing a night in a hospital bed:
Intensive Care
Complications,
Pain.
As I Lay Dying,
Owls Do Cry.
I Miss You When I Blink.
This Thing of Darkness,
Spinster Keeper,
Wrestling with the Angel.
And a more general reflection on recent times and what might keep us going:
Embers
How Should a Person Be
In These Days of Prohibition?
The Light Years
Outlawed,
The Noonday Demon.
Some Body to Love
The Still Point,
The Still Point of the Turning World.
Color and Line
A Match to the Heart.
The Bare Abundance
Love’s Work.
Unsettled Ground
The Magician’s Assistant.
Braiding Sweetgrass
Revelations of Divine Love.
Have a go at some book spine poems if you haven’t already! They’re such fun.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Wow, these are impressive! If only I could shoehorn books back out of my tightly packed TBR!
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Thanks! With all the TBR photos you take, maybe you’d be able to reconstruct the shelf afterwards? 🙂 I kept it simple by only using my current stacks rather than taking any others off the shelves specifically.
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Lovely! Thank you for the link. I’ll be on furlough again next week and will definitely be doing more then to.
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Sorry about the furlough, but I’m glad you’re already making fun plans for it. Thanks for starting this meme back up!
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Excellent – and long too. My efforts have always been shorter, but it’s ages since I’ve had a go. Time for another play with my bookshelves.
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Longer doesn’t mean better … my favourite from last year was a mini haiku. Enjoy!
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Oh lovely Rebecca! I think I’m going to do one later in the week. I love Embers.
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I’m pleased with how that one turned out, especially the first stanza (I allowed myself to move the question mark!). It’s addictive, isn’t it?
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Very 🙂
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These are very profound, and somehow moving. I’m very tempted to have a second go but fear my attempt will be rather insipid in comparison.
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Thank you. They were more serious than I initially intended — it must be all the medical books I read. But the poems needn’t be message-driven; they can just be a selection of lovely titles you find on your shelves.
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[…] inspired by Annabel and Rebecca who have both posted some fantastic book spine poetry this week, I thought I’d have another […]
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Love them! (Is it wrong to like books spine poetry more than real poetry?)
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Even better than the real thing? (to quote a song…) I like having the phrases to play around with. I’d be hopeless at composing poetry from scratch!
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Me too!
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The poems are lovely. But I’m also struck by just how massive your current doorstopper read is! Sheesh. Welcome, January.
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The first 60 or 70 pages went swimmingly, but then I petered out. This keeps happening to me…
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Maybe your doorstoppers need to be more of a single-book focus for you? But that seems as though it’d be doubly painful…
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I regained interest and got to p. 120 … but there it has stayed for quite a while. I don’t know how the doorstoppers ever will get read, apart from this usual bit by bit. I certainly won’t manage one a month this year, but I will write about the ones I do manage to finish, even if they take several months.
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