SOL 29/31: Book Spine Poetry

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the March Slice of Life Story Challenge community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny

 for hosting this meeting place each day in March

and for nurturing our writing lives.

Yesterday morning I hit a sweet slicing spot! I suddenly have more things to write about than I have days left in the month. My 30/31 slice is written, my 31/31 slice is planned, I want to write a "Dear Academy of American Poets post, and then up pops Stacey's naughty children post and I definitely want to write a naughty Grandma and Jack slice. Okay, I'll write the "Dear Academy of American Poets" post for 29/31 and save the naughty Grandma and Jack post for a future Tuesday slice of life. 

And then last night, I read Leigh Anne's book spine poem and suddenly I want today's post to be book spine poetry. All right, I'll shift the "Dear Academy of American Poets" to April for National Poetry Month so I can play with books to create some book spine poetry this morning. Past experience with this format tells me to limit myself to a set number of books. So I choose my picture book bin from the public library. And it's time to create!

Here are the three poems I created:

School people,

here comes teacher cat,

the new liBEARian,

the word collector!

 Once upon a full moon

the blue umbrella

swimming with sharks,

otter, and odder.

Awake beautiful child!

Once upon a full moon

Malala

traveling the blue road

shaking things up!

SOLSC 31/31: Poetry Month Beckons!

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth

 Kathleen, Deb, Lisa, Melanie, and Lanny

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

and for nurturing our writing lives.

Head over to Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's blog, 

The Poem Farm, for this week's

round-up of poetic goodness.  

Thanks, Amy, for hosting this week!

I love the 31 day writing streak badge!  And since it's Friday, I'm joining a delightful group of bloggers for Poetry Friday, a weekly group that celebrates all things poetic all year round.  However during April the fun ramps up with a month long festival of poetic goodness.  

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is hosting this week.  If you've never explored her site, The Poem Farm, stop now and go there.  It's such a delightful poetic playground.  She speaks directly to students, shares wonderful writing prompts, and each year selects a theme that she writes around for the month of April.  My favorite was 2014 (my last year of teaching) when all her poems were written about objects in the thrift store.  These poems are no longer on her site since she's trying to sell them as a collection.  Oh, how I hope to someday hold this tribute to thrift store items in my hand.  And if you ever get the chance to hear Amy speak at a conference, you're in for an exceptional treat!  I first heard her speak at an All Write conference and then at NCTE.  I'm still sad that she was unable to attend last year's Poetry Camp at Western Washington University.  

Here's a book spine poem of some favorite poetry books that I've played around with and rearranged over and over this week.  I'm sure some of my mathematically inclined friends could tell me the number of ways that a stack of six book titles could be arranged.  I'm sure I've tried at least half of them.  Here's my favorite arrangement (so far)!

She walks in beauty

A jar of tiny stars

Awakening the heart

Open the door

House of light 

Pass the poetry, please!

SOLSC 17/31 & Poetry Friday: A Book Spine Poem

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen,

Deb, Lisa, Melanie, and Lanny

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

and for nurturing our writing lives.

If you've ever written book spine poetry, you know how it can totally mess up your bookshelves and become very time consuming as you search for those just right titles .  So this week, I limited myself to my current library picture books.  You may recognize a title that you've recommended since my picture book basket is filled almost exclusively with titles recommended by slicer friends.  

Welcome,

Step right up!

This house, once

Adrift at sea

A piece of home.

Head over to Robyn Hood Black's blog, 

Life on the Deckle Edge, for this week's

round-up of poetic goodness.  

Thanks, Robyn, for hosting this week!

Slice of Life: Book Spine Poem

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Lisa, and Melanie

 for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

Always reluctant to pack away the Christmas decorations, I arranged some of my Christmas picture books to create a book spine poem that reflects on our biggest blessings of 2016!

Little One We Knew You'd Come

(that would be Teddy)!

A Dozen Silk Diapers,

A Christmas Memory 

(Teddy's first snow),

The Third Gift:  Bartholomew's Blessing -

Room For A Little One

(Grandson #2 - Arriving in February)!

I love how two births bookend this poem - one in June and one soon to come.  Those births and the joy they bring remind us
of how blessed we are by the birth of the Savior.  
And I must put in a plug for Bartholomew's Blessing, one of my favorite Christmas picture books.  I was so excited when it was picked by the Lundell girls to be read at our Christmas story hour last week.   If you don't know this book, you should.  It's a precious story of the mouse Bartholomew's search for a perfect gift when he's invited by an angel to be blessed by the newborn prince.  You'll be mesmerized by Margie Moore's beautiful illustrations and captivated by 
Stephanie Tolan's story of Bartholomew's journey.  

Poetry Friday: Book Spine Poetry for Eight Great Poetry Books!

Head over to Writing the World for Kids

 for this week's roundup of poetry love
with Laura Purdie Salas.

Thanks for hosting, Laura!

I missed posting last Friday.  Something about writing a slice of life every day in March for the challenge from Two Writing Teachers leaves me exhausted and spent!  I'm always surprised by writer friends who find it energizing and hop right into posting daily for April.  I thought about posting every day in April, but then I missed the first Poetry Friday of the month.  

So here's my plan.  Something about putting it in writing holds me accountable.  I plan to share thirty of my favorite books of poetry during April by sharing eight books today, seven books next Friday, seven books the following Friday, and eight on the last Friday of April.  I like the symmetry of my plan, and it's doable.  I don't plan to put them in any particular order.  As I was stacking up today's books, I realized that I could create a book spine poem.  I'm not promising a book spine poem for every week, but it worked for this week's titles!  What I will promise is to show up each Friday for the rest of the month and share poetry books that I love.  

Wonderful Words

Toasting Marshmallows

Daniel Finds a Poem

Whisper and Shout

One Today

I Am the Book

Jumping Off Library Shelves

When Green Becomes Tomatoes

Wonderful Words, I Am the Book, and Jumping Off Library Shelves, are delightful collections selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins.  I love his collections and look forward to each new book, knowing that I will not be disappointed.  These three deal with three of my passions:  words, books, and libraries.   Toasting Marshmallows by Kristine O'Connell George (watch for more of her books this month) features camping poems.  Patrice Vecchione's Whisper and Shout:  Poems to Memorize is a delightful anthology of some of the best poems of today and the past that are fun to memorize.  Don't miss E. E. Cumming's "maggie and milly and molly and mae," Robert Frost's" The Road Not Taken" and Nikki Giovanni's "Knoxville, Tennessee."  One Today by Richard Blanco and illustrated by Dav Pilkey is a new favorite that I discovered last fall on a trip to DC and wrote about in this post.  The last two books are both recent discoveries that I love.  When Green Becomes Tomatoes by Julie Fogliano and illustrated by Julie Morstadt is a sweet celebration of the seasons.   Daniel Finds a Poem written and illustrated in beautiful collages by Micha Archer is Daniel's journey through the week as he seeks answers to  the question, What is poetry?

I hope that you may be inspired to check out a new-to-you book of poetry as you meander through my favorite poetry books this month!

2015 SOLSC 22/31: How To Be Perfect

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, and Anna

for hosting this meeting place each day in March

and for nurturing our writing lives. 

I'm following Elsie's lead from her post, Title Fun,

and jumping in this morning with book spine poetry.

I have an assortment of motivational books I keep on my desk,

I added a few library titles, and this is the result:

HOW TO BE PERFECT

let's all be brave.

THIS YEAR I WILL . . .

LIGHTEN UP!

It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys

The Procrastinator's Handbook

THINspired

Starting Monday

simple days

Everyday Sacred

DISCLAIMER #1:  Book spine poetry can be addicting.  And you'll really mess up your bookshelves.  I know, I did it last year.  That's why I limited myself to books already on my desk

and current books checked out from the library.

(Okay, I did sneak the title book from my nightstand.)

DISCLAIMER #2:  Creating a poem from book spines is not necessarily a quick post.

There are many ways to arrange the words from ten books,

and I think I tried and took photos of each possibility.

DISCLAIMER #3:  All punctuation marks and capital letters are those of the original author and not the creator of this poem.  It's very difficult for me to type those titles with no caps, but I did it.  

  

DISCLAIMER #4:  The title, How To Be Perfect, is not a motivational book.  

It's a book of poetry by Ron Padgett.  

I highly recommend the title poem which occupies nine pages in the book

and is more fun and much faster to read than any of the other books.