Book spine poem: Walking Word by Word

Ninety years ago today, the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary – 414,825 words defined in 15,487 pages over 12 volumes – was completed. Invited by its editors to mark the anniversary, I’ve made a new book spine poem, dedicated to the OED and to James Murray:

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Walking Word by Word

Caught in the web of words,
The loom of language,
The stuff of thought,
The story of writing ­­–
a line made by
walking word by
word through the
language glass.

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Book spine poem: The Accidental Grammar

Every so often I make a poem by stacking books on top of one another so their titles line up felicitously. I call them book spine poems, or bookmashes for short. Here’s a new one.

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The Accidental Grammar

Voices in stone
breaking the rock:
the accidental grammar,
the loom of language,
the awakening of intelligence,
the mind’s eye reborn –
Renegade presence,
gifts of unknown things.

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Some of these are recent additions to the bookshelf; a few are old favourites. There’s a strong bias towards non-fiction here, with Ali Smith’s the only novel. In 2013 I found a close ratio of fiction to non-fiction in my bookmashes, but I’ll have to review the figures, maybe when I’ve done 40 or 50 (we’re at 37 now).

Book spine poem: Mice

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Mice

White jazz in a café:
Nocturnes, still life –
The mouse and his child
Loitering with intent.

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Book spine poem: A Quiet Life

Last weekend I read The Long Gaze Back, a wonderful anthology of short stories by Irish women writers, edited by Sinéad Gleeson. I felt the book’s title – borrowed from Maeve Brennan’s novella The Visitor – could work in a book spine poem. So here it is.

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A Quiet Life

A quiet life
on Chesil Beach,
loving and giving
bliss, breath, broken
words, the broken shore,
The long gaze back
under Milk Wood.
Johnny, I hardly
knew you.

Book spine poem: Travelling shoes

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Travelling shoes

Heartsick, left for dead
The Italian girl
Alone in Berlin.
All God’s children need
Travelling shoes:
Travels in dreamland,
Other people’s shoes.

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Thanks to the authors: Chelsea Cain, Nick Ward with Sinéad O’Brien, Iris Murdoch, Hans Fallada, Maya Angelou, Phil Patton, and Harriet Walter; and to Nina Katchadourian.

See the archive for older book spine poems, aka bookmashes, and let me know if you join in the game.

Book spine poem: Broken words

New books mean a new book spine poem, aka bookmash. This one has a language theme.

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Book spine poem: Trespass in a Strange Room

A new book spine poem, aka bookmash, this one a mixture of recent reads and newly acquired to-be-reads. (Click to enlarge the photo.)

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Trespass in a Strange Room

Trespass in a strange room –
Criminal shadows, a severed head,
John Brown’s body waiting for an angel,
Destination: morgue!

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