Bookmash: Forest of symbols

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Forest of symbols

The forest of symbols,
The eye beguiled:
Tree of smoke
Through the language glass,
Everything you know
Lost in translation.

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With thanks to the authors: Victor Turner, Bruno Ernst, Denis Johnson, Guy Deutscher, Zoë Heller, and Eva Hoffman.

Special thanks to Nina Katchadourian, whose Sorted Books project was my original inspiration for this.

More of these, and links to other people’s, in the bookmash archive.

Cross-posted on Tumblr.

Update:

Lafcadio De La Foret writes: “If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live with aphasia, I’ve found the words that explain it best to me. And it’s compiled by just stacking six books.”

Bookmash: Time, love and summer

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Time, love and summer

A woman speaks
About time, love and summer:
Arrow in the blue;
Land of milk and honey,
Sixpence in her shoe.

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With thanks to the authors: Anaïs Nin, Paul Davies, William Trevor, Arthur Koestler, Bríd Mahon, and Maura Treacy.

I’m grateful, as always, to Nina Katchadourian: her Sorted Books project inspired this in the first place.

Update: More, from Twitter: a gardeny one by @HarrietRycroft, and a stargazing one by @ozalba.

City of Lu has joined in, with a brace of funny examples.

Jessie Jessup has gone full throttle nerd swoon for book mash poetry — and offers six more here.

Chris Galvin felt National Poetry Month was the perfect excuse for her second book spine poem. And another: ‘Old Beijing‘.

[bookmash archive]

Bookmash: Ambient gestures

A new bookmash today. Most of my books are in storage, or I would be doing these more often, but there are enough within arm’s reach to put the occasional one together without reusing too many titles.  p.

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Ambient gestures

Ambient gestures
Against interpretation,
The sense of things
Out of the ordinary:
Unspeak the tyranny of words.

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You can see previous examples in the bookmash archives, including links to other people’s. Let me know if you join in, and I’ll add you to the list.

Thanks to Nina Katchadourian for the idea, and to the featured authors (dead or alive): Jack Womack, Desmond Morris, Susan Sontag, Alison Dye, Jon Ronson, Steven Poole, and Stuart Chase.

[I posted this bookmash on Tumblr as well.]

Bookmash: Making love, getting busted

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Making love, getting busted,
Memento Mori;
Leaving Las Vegas
In guilt and in glory.

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Featuring Muriel Spark, John O’Brien, David Hanly, and (in lines 1 and 2) a host of poets of erotic verse, and people who have been arrested in the U.S.

Maybe the recent limerick contest has rubbed off, but this is the first bookmash I’ve made that rhymes in the traditional manner. To see earlier, non-rhyming efforts, click here; and here for Nina Katchadourian’s original Sorted Books.

Bookmash: Return (All Summer)

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Return (All Summer)

All summer a place apart,
Remembering light and stone,
Fences and windows
The way that I went.
Another country,
Now that you’re back.

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You can find previous bookmash poems here, including links to other people’s. The idea came from Nina Katchadourian’s Sorted Books project.

Featured authors: Claire Kilroy, Dervla Murphy, Deirdre Madden, Naomi Klein, Robert Lloyd Praeger, James Baldwin, A. L. Kennedy.

Bookmash: Dead Voices Reading

A new bookmash:

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Dead Voices Reading

All the dead voices
Reading in the dark,
Stories of five decades rumble
Tumble in search of memory
Up the line to death.
Almost there.

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And an old one (well, from last November):

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The News from Ireland

A night to remember
The news from Ireland;
Something under the bed is drooling.

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These two bring the bookmash count to 10. Nos. 1–8 are here.

Thank you to the authors: Declan Hughes, Seamus Deane, Hermann Hesse, Joe R. Lansdale, Eric R. Kandel, the war poets, and Nuala O’Faolain (Dead Voices Reading); Walter Lord, William Trevor, and Bill Watterson (The News from Ireland); and special thanks to Nina Katchadourian, whose wonderful series of Sorted Books got me started.

The web of words

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The web of words

Caught in the web of words –
The elements of editing,
The grammar of living –
I may be some time.

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I almost included this title at line 2, but I felt it would be too harsh.

This is the eighth ‘bookmash’ I’ve posted. Numbers 1–7 are here.

Artist Nina Katchadourian’s Sorted Books project was my original inspiration.

Thanks to the authors: K. M. Elisabeth Murray, Arthur Plotnik, David Cooper, and Francis Spufford.