Bookmash: The Shining Levels

*

[click to enlarge]

*

The Shining Levels

The shining levels carry me down
On beauty, style, borrowed finery –
The decay of the angel, the golden ass,
The distant past another roadside attraction.

*

Thanks to the authors: John Wyatt, M.J. Hyland, Zadie Smith, Joseph M. Williams, Paula Fox, Yukio Mishima, Apuleius, William Trevor, and Tom Robbins; and to Nina Katchadourian for the idea.

More book spine poems in the archive, along with links to other people’s. Feel free to join in.

Bookmash: Time, love and summer

[click to enlarge]

.

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.

.

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]

Bookmash: Dead Voices Reading

A new bookmash:

.

.

Dead Voices Reading

All the dead voices
Reading in the dark,
Stories of five decades rumble
Tumble in search of memory
Up the line to death.
Almost there.

.

And an old one (well, from last November):

.

.

The News from Ireland

A night to remember
The news from Ireland;
Something under the bed is drooling.

.

These two bring the bookmash count to 10. Nos. 1–8 are here.

Thanks to the authors: Declan Hughes, Seamus Deane, Hermann Hesse, Joe R. Lansdale, Eric R. Kandel, the war poets, and Nuala O’Faolain (Dead Voices Reading); Walter Lord, William Trevor, and Bill Watterson (The News from Ireland); and thanks also to artist Nina Katchadourian, whose series of Sorted Books got me started.