April is National Poetry Month, so I thought I’d try my hand at some book spine poetry. Thanks to Naomi at Consumed by Ink and Cathy at 746 Books for the fun idea! I have taken the liberty of adding punctuation between some lines, but the book titles themselves appear exactly as on the spines. This has been a fun project to do a bit at a time over the last couple of weeks – it’s always a nice break from my editing and more analytical writing.

Peruse your own shelves or the local library’s and have a go. It’s an easy way to get creative!

---

The years go by so fast…

 

Landmarks

 

Summertime

Harvest

A time of gifts

 

Winter

A week in December

March

 

Spring

Snow in May

A year on the wing

---

A morbid little number, with a riff on Stevie Smith:

 

All at sea

 

Cold beacons:

The iceberg,

The whirlpool,

The depths.

Drowning Ruth,

Wave.

---

Memento mori:

 

In fond remembrance of me

 

How to read a graveyard:

A tour of bones,

Mostly harmless.

Last night on earth?

Nothing to be frightened of.

---

Thanks to my husband, we have a ton of bird-themed books. The concluding line from Emily Dickinson makes this one a bit of a cheat.

 

Adventures among birds

 

To see every bird on earth:

The secret lives of puffins,

Last of the curlews,

The life of the skies.

 

Rare encounters with ordinary birds:

Songbird journeys,

An eye on the sparrow,

The goldfinch.

 

Falcon fever:

The armchair birder

Feeding the eagles,

Chasing the wild goose.

 

Hope is the thing with feathers.

---

An attempt to lay the groundwork for some progressive theology:

 

How (not) to speak of God

 

Jesus among other gods:

Atonement?

Blessed assurance?

Everything is illuminated?

The nice and the good

Crossing to safety?

 

A new kind of Christianity

The story we find ourselves in.

 

An unquiet mind

Until I find you.

 

Love wins;

No man is an island;

We make the road by walking.

---

This one’s my favorite – a tribute to my peaceful days spent working from home.

 

Still life

 

The house tells the story:

A room with a view

A slanting of the sun

The shadow hour

A circle of quiet.

 

So many books, so little time;

Leave me alone, I’m reading.