Poetry

The Best of Book Spine Poetry

Amanda Nelson

Staff Writer

Amanda Nelson is an Executive Director of Book Riot. She lives in Richmond, VA.

The concept of book spine poetry appeared in 1993 with Nina Katchadourian’s Sorted Books project. Katchadourian began collecting interesting titles and arranging them in clusters so the spines could be read like a sentence. Maria Popova of Brain Pickings adapted the spine sentences into poetry, and the idea quickly spread around the interwebs. LibraryThing even ran a Book Spine Poetry contest earlier this year (with Katchadourian as a guest judge). Here, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite examples of the medium:

The Pin

The Pin

Examples from Nina Katchadourian’s original Sorted Books project

The Pin

The Pin

From Maria Popova at Brain Pickings

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/527976756291617972/

Entry from LibraryThing contest, from user jorlene

 

The Pin

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/166281411211956120/

Two of my favorites, from 100 Scope Notes, a children’s literature news site

 

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