A new book spine poem (aka bookmash).
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Memory
So I am glad our story begins:
Speak, memory, the forgotten language,
Clear the mist in the mirror,
The unreality of memory going dark,
The shadow of the sun across a
Billion years, far from the light
Of heaven.
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Thanks to the authors: A. L. Kennedy, Tobias Wolff, Vladimir Nabokov, Erich Fromm, Nicola Barker, Susan Hill, Elisa Gabbert, Julia Ebner, Ryszard Kapuściński, Robert Silverberg, and Tade Thompson.
A. L. Kennedy’s short story collection Now That You’re Back concluded an early bookmash back in 2011. Nicola Barker has featured in several: her titles lend themselves to this form somehow. (The spine of Clear, above, was spoiled in removing a sticker with some obnoxious glue.)
Though the books’ genres have no bearing on this found poem, I like how they go from literature to essays and journalism (with a detour through psychoanalysis) and end up in science fiction: a trip in its own right.
Have you made a book spine poem yet? Let me know if you join in. For more of mine, see the Sentence first bookmash archive.
Sentence first 
I had never heard of bookmashes until I happened across one on this site a few months ago. What a wonderfully creative idea.
I really like this one: there’s something both radiant and achingly poignant about it.
Thanks very much, Rob. I first encountered the idea from artist Nina Katchadourian. It’s still quite niche.
I wasn’t sure if this one would end up with an optimistic or a pessimistic tone, and I think it could be read either way.
Wow.
Glad you liked it, Louise.
Love this – you’ve inspired me to work on my own. Just finished reading an excellent history of Irish women’s experience of immigration and crime called Bad Bridgets…I’ve got to fit it in somehow.
Sounds like an interesting book, and that title should be fun to use.