It’s been a while since I made a book spine poem (aka bookmash). This one is overdue, but thanks to Edna O’Brien it’s also a month early:
*
Listening to the Wind
Connemara –
listening to the wind,
the songs of trees, wild
December’s nocturnes
on your doorstep,
Going home one by one
in the darkness.
*
*
Thanks to the authors: Tim Robinson, David George Haskell, Edna O’Brien, Kazuo Ishiguro, Heather Greer, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Deirdre Madden; and to Nina Katchadourian.
Edna O’Brien and Deirdre Madden have both featured a few times on Sentence first, including in previous bookmashes. Heather Greer’s book, a beautifully illustrated guide to the moths and butterflies of Connemara, is one I did some editing on, years ago.
Have you made a book spine poem yet?
Sentence first 
Thanks for making my morning.
Kate Kelly
And thank you for stopping by, Kate.
Dia dhuit a chara,
This made me think of this poem by Roger McGough.
Today’s Recipe – Book Soup
Choose a book with plenty of fat on it. Your local
bookseller will be happy to advise you on this.
He’ll probably suggest a dictionary or a nice juicy
biography or even an anthology which is a very
popular cut at the moment. Mash the book into a pulp,
add some bacon rind, a dash of poetry criticism
and season to taste. Heat in a low oven
(preferably under eighteen inches) until thickened.
Serve hot with deep fried crispy bookworms.
There’s another thing it reminds me of and that’s the entry to the bookshop in la Rue Neuve in (Old) Lyon where you have to go through an archway of books stuck together to get in.
Dia is Muire duit. There’s all sorts of fun to be had with books.
An excellent poem, Stan, and we won’t endorse your poetic licence for putting an apostrophe into Edna O’Brien’s title …
Thanks, Martyn. My house rule is that I can change punctuation and capitalisation but not spelling (and I can’t add or omit words). This is the first time I’ve inserted an apostrophe, and I mulled over it. You could say it’s more spelling than punctuation, but I think once the word is put in the poem, it’s sufficiently liberated. Plus, it scratches this editor’s grammatical itch. =)
I made some for National Poetry Month a few years ago, using only poetry titles. I haven’t done any since, but maybe it’s time.
https://rnv.letterspace.org/categories/spine/
These are great. I hope you do more.
Thanks! When you posted your last spine poem back in March, I thought about doing some more, but as with so many other things this wretched year, I found myself so easily overwhelmed… Maybe I’ll walk my shelves this winter and see what I see.
And don’t make us wait so long for your next one.
Sounds like a deal.