Treason’s Harbour (a book spine poem)

I’m a day late for National Poetry Day, so this post can serve to suggest its year-round continuation in practice – even for elliptical found poems assembled from book spines. Click to enlarge:

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Treason’s Harbour

Explorations of the marvellous
Mazes and labyrinths by salt water:
Treason’s harbour.
Quarantine the sleepwalkers,
The Sufis, the inheritors,
Nothing happens in Carmincross.

Thanks to the authors and editors: Peter Nicholls, W. H. Matthews, Angela Bourke, Patrick O’Brian, Jim Crace, Arthur Koestler, Idries Shah, William Golding, and Benedict Kiely.

More book spine poems, aka bookmashes, in the archives. I see the Lakeside Theatre at University of Essex is having a bookmash contest for tickets to a radio writing workshop (it links to mine for illustration). Good luck to the entrants!

Bookmash: Time, love and summer

[click to enlarge]

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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; and to Nina Katchadourian, whose Sorted Books project started it for me.

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]