June 4, 2018
Some weeks ago I made a visual poem from book spines to mark the 90th anniversary of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED editors liked it enough to republish it on their website; they also asked me a few things about language, dictionaries, and book spine poetry.
You can read my short interview on the new OED blog. If dictionaries and word history interest you, I recommend the rest of the blog – click the image below – which looks at the OED‘s reception in 1928, the work of editors past and present, and dialect words from around the world, among other things.
For more book spine poems, aka bookmashes, see the archive.
2 Comments | 
books, language, language history, lexicography, personal, poetry, words | Tagged: book spine poem, bookmash, books, dictionaries, found poetry, language, language history, lexicography, OED, OED90, personal, poetry, visual poetry, wordplay, words | 
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Posted by Stan Carey
April 19, 2018
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:
[click to enlarge]
*
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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15 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
April 16, 2017
It’s a few months since I made one of these. So: a new book spine poem.
*
‘Microworlds’
Microworlds, a patchwork planet
Solar bones brighter than
A thousand suns.
Gut symmetries collapse,
All fall down,
Vertigo: wide open –
Full catastrophe living.
*
*
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12 Comments | books, literature, poetry, wordplay | Tagged: Anne Tyler, book spine poem, bookmash, books, found poetry, Ita Daly, Jared Diamond, Jeanette Winterson, Joanna Walsh, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mike McCormack, Nicola Barker, poetry, Robert Jungk, science fiction, Stanislaw Lem, visual poetry, wordplay | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
December 18, 2016
My latest piece of doggerel in book-spine form has an obvious theme.
*
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.
*
[click to enlarge]
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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
September 28, 2016
A new (and characteristically overdue) bookmash! Also known as a book spine poem. Here goes.
*
Grand Central Station
By Grand Central Station
I sat down and wept:
Spill, simmer,
Falter, wither,
A Belfast woman a far cry
from Kensington.
The leaves on grey,
The introvert’s way,
The woman who talked
to herself:
If you leave me,
Can I come too?
The joke’s over –
The song is you.
*
*
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26 Comments | books, literature, poetry, wordplay | Tagged: A.L. Barker, book spine poem, bookmash, books, Cynthia Heimel, Desmond Hogan, Elizabeth Smart, found poetry, literature, love poetry, Mary Beckett, Megan Abbott, Muriel Spark, photography, poetry, Ralph Steadman, Sara Baume, Sophia Dembling, visual poetry, wordplay | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
July 15, 2016
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.
*
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.
*
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).
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20 Comments | books, language, photography, poetry, wordplay | Tagged: Ali Smith, book spine poems, bookmash, books, Daniel Dennett, Douglas Hofstadter, Ernst Doblhofer, found poetry, Frank Palmer, Frederick Bodmer, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Jolene Babyak, language, language history, literature, Lyall Watson, Mark E. Smith, Patsy Rodenburg, photography, poetry, Susan Sontag, visual poetry, wordplay | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
May 19, 2016
*
Mice
White jazz in a café:
Nocturnes, still life –
The mouse and his child
Loitering with intent.
*
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2 Comments | books, poetry, wordplay | Tagged: A.S. Byatt, animals, book spine poems, bookmash, books, cafe, found poetry, James Ellroy, jazz, Kazuo Ishiguro, Mary Lavin, mice, Muriel Spark, music, photography, poetry, reading, Russell Hoban, visual poetry, wordplay | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
