If you’re lucky enough to have books and time at hand, here’s something fun you can do in lockdown: book spine poetry.
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All the Pieces Matter
I choose to live
a life in parts –
insects’ flight
from dream to dream,
through the woods
beyond the sea.
I only say this
because I love you:
All the pieces
matter.
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18 Comments | 
books, literature, poetry, wordplay | Tagged: Alannah Robins, Bob Gibbons, book spine poem, bookmash, books, Bryan Cranston, Deborah Tannen, Emily Carroll, found poetry, Jonathan Abrams, literature, Oona Frawley, Paul Lynch, photography, poetry, Sabine Dardenne, visual poetry, wordplay | 
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Posted by Stan Carey
Here’s a new book spine poem (aka bookmash). For the uninitiated: This is a game where you make a visual poem from the spines of books on your shelf.
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Secret Place
Wild flowers, the wild places,
The birds of the innocent wood –
The secret place on the black hill,
Half a life still life,
The living mountain
Changing my mind.
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2 Comments | books, literature, poetry, wordplay | Tagged: A.S. Byatt, book spine poem, bookmash, books, Bruce Chatwin, Deirdre Madden, found poetry, literature, Nan Shepherd, nature, nature poetry, photography, poetry, Richard Fitter, Robert Macfarlane, Tana French, V.S. Naipaul, visual poetry, wordplay, Zadie Smith | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
Walking clears my head. Especially here, on the eastern lip of the Atlantic, the fresh winds gusting in over Galway Bay clear the cobwebs of editing and writing from my mind. When I need a break from work – from books, paragraphs, sentences, words, letters – I walk.
Sometimes, though, the letters follow me. This one gave me a proper surprise, almost glowing in the wet autumn ground:
15 Comments | Ireland, nature, personal, photography | Tagged: autumn, autumn leaves, climate, Galway, graffiti, Ireland, leaves, letters, mystery, nature, nature photography, personal, photography, Q, stencil, street art, walking, weather | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
Last weekend, driving to the Burren in County Clare (just south of Galway, where I live, and an endlessly interesting place to explore), a friend and I picked up the relevant Ordinance Survey map to get a better sense of the terrain.
Maps are a reliable source of pleasure, firing the imagination as we pore over their flattened geography, their special codes and symbols. Digital maps are ubiquitous now, but I still love to use paper maps when the opportunity arises.
View of Co. Clare from Mullaghmore (‘Great Summit’ or ‘Big Summit’)
8 Comments | film, Ireland, naming, personal, photography | Tagged: Burren, Cape Fear, County Clare, film history, filmmaking, films, geography, Gregory Peck, hiking, hillwalking, history, Ireland, Irish history, Kilmacduagh, landscape, maps, Martin Scorsese, monastery, movies, Mullaghmore, naming, personal, photography, round tower, ruins, The Burren, thriller, travel | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
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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17 Comments | books, lexicography, poetry, wordplay | Tagged: Andrew Robinson, book spine poem, book spine poems, bookmash, books, concrete poetry, dictionaries, found poetry, Frederick Bodmer, Guy Deutscher, James Murray, K M Elisabeth Murray, Kory Stamper, language, lexicography, OED, photography, poetry, Sara Baume, Steven Pinker, visual poetry, wordplay | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
On a recent trip to London I visited 17 Gough Square, better known as Dr Johnson’s House. Samuel Johnson compiled his great Dictionary of 1755 in this tall Georgian building, and I’ve always wanted to visit. As I’m currently writing a column on the subject (ish), the timing was apt.
On my way there I passed a Furnival Street and wondered if it was named after another lexicographer – but that Furnivall has two l’s in his name, so I guess not.
The house is ‘one of a very few of its age to survive in the City of London, and the only one of Johnson’s eighteen London homes to have done so’, Henry Hitchings writes in his terrific book Defining the World (aka Dr Johnson’s Dictionary). Here’s the plaque outside:
Upstairs, a stained-glass window of Johnson overlooks the square:
10 Comments | art, language, lexicography, personal, signs, writers | Tagged: ambiguity, art, books, Brick Lane, Clapham, dictionary, Dr Johnson's House, history, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, lexicography, London, Pac-Man, personal, petrichor, photography, Samuel Johnson, Serpentine Bridge, stained-glass window, street art, travel, UK | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
My latest piece of doggerel in book-spine form has an obvious theme.
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Language, Language!
Language, language!
The story of language.
Language, slanguage
Spoken here: a history of
Language, a history of
Writing: style, style,
Style in fiction,
Linguistics and style,
Language and linguistics.
What is linguistics?
Understanding language.
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9 Comments | books, language, linguistics, poetry, wordplay | Tagged: Bernard Share, book spine poem, bookmash, books, C.L. Barber, Daniel Everett, David Crystal, Elizabeth Grace Winkler, F L Lucas, found poetry, Geoffrey N. Leech, John Lyons, John Spencer, Jonathon Green, Joseph M Williams, language, language books, Leonard Bloomfield, linguistics, Mark Abley, Michael H. Short, Michael J. Gregory, Nils Erik Enkvist, photography, poetry, Steven Roger Fischer, visual poetry, wordplay, writing style | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
