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March 12, 2010 by Travis Jonker

2010 Book Spine Poem Gallery

March 12, 2010 by Travis Jonker   53 comments

I’m impressed.

Three cheers for the brave souls who took book spines and created their own poetic masterpieces (or centos, as Laura Purdie Salas tells me). There’s some great work here.

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Be sure to visit Becky’s Book Reviews for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

@ A Year of Reading

@ Bookends.

@ Papertrails Family Book Blog.

@ Stone Arch Books Blog.

@ Bookends.

@ Kathryn Apel.

@ Charlotte’s Library.

An excellent group of student poems @ Ms B’s Book Blog.

@ Bri Johnson.

Another one by Bri Johnson.

@ Annie Beth Ericsson.

@ Chachic’s Random Ramblings.

@ Kimberly Joy Peters.

@ World of Words.

The trouble with poetryis that it’s not just joyful noise;
it’s where I live–
my thoughts flicker flash
checking in to hotel deep
whirling in the spin of things

And I veer between faith and doubt
as something new begins…
a ten-second rainshower waters seeds that were
once upon ice
but now warm as we swing around the sun

I wish I could write simple poems in black and white
shape a rhyme in geometric perfection
but I’m tap-dancing on the roof instead
wondering what is goodbye?
do rabbits have Christmas?
what voices could we hear from a medieval village?
which would be worse: math curse or science verse?
are alphathoughts the leaders of the alphabet pack?

so this is just to say that
technically, it’s not my fault I’m insane
I’m busy reaching for sun andlistening for the song of the sparrow

A photoless entry from laurasalas.

@ A Certain Quality of Spirit.

This is my second attempt.

This is my original.

@ Nina Katchadourian. Her work was where the idea came from.

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About Travis Jonker

Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.

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Comments

  1. Diane Mayr says

    March 12, 2010 at 10:10 am

    This is fabulous! What a fun project for middle school kids, too!

  2. Sarah says

    March 12, 2010 at 10:49 am

    I plan on doing this as one of our teen programs for Poetry Month in April–I love this and can’t wait to see what the teens come up with!

    • Travis says

      March 12, 2010 at 11:35 am

      That’s a great idea. There is something about this style that seems very well suited for kids and teens. I’d love to see the results!

  3. Marge Loch-Wouters says

    March 12, 2010 at 11:08 am

    A whole new way for me to look at kids and teen books! These are so much fun and sooooo interesting.

  4. tanita says

    March 12, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    I love these — I think if I got started doing these, I’d be fiddling with them all day.

    • Travis says

      March 13, 2010 at 9:01 am

      Ha – yes, you may find that you have to cut yourself off. Once I started, I kept looking at books, thinking of ways to make my poem better.

  5. Laura Evans says

    March 12, 2010 at 3:00 pm

    Wow, what a fun read! Thanks!

    Laura

  6. Doraine Bennett says

    March 12, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    What a great idea. And some fun poems as a result.

  7. Kat Apel says

    March 12, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    What a wonderful idea! Simply brilliant – and so simple. MUST try it. (And I thought I had plans for the day… 🙂 )

  8. Kat Apel says

    March 12, 2010 at 5:39 pm

    Ummm… Let me qualify. Simple concept, though by NO means simple in reality. Finding the perfect titles to match and build the poetry. Finding them on your bookshelf… I can see this being a task for library day!

    • Travis says

      March 12, 2010 at 5:42 pm

      It is challenging, which makes it even better when you get one that works out – keep plugging away

  9. Kat Apel says

    March 13, 2010 at 1:01 am

    Hi Travis,

    I’ve posted a couple of spineys to my blog; katswhiskers.wordpress.com . Good fun!

  10. Laura Purdie Salas says

    March 16, 2010 at 11:04 am

    Wow–these are amazing! I love them. My favorite is The Witches/Paint the Wind/Step by Wicked Step.

    Wicked cool:>) Great job, everybody!

  11. Beth says

    March 19, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    These are so cool, and so impressive! I did a few of my own using books from my publishing company (Capstone Fiction).

    http://stonearchbooks.blogspot.com/2010/03/poetry-friday-book-spine-style.html

  12. Kerry says

    March 19, 2010 at 7:38 pm

    Hey, Travis – we created our own book spine poem today using kids’ books. What a great idea – check it out at http://www.papertrailsfamily.com.

    Cheers,
    The Papertrails Family

  13. Susie says

    March 21, 2010 at 10:15 pm

    Thanks for sharing!!! My second grade students are going to have fun reading these, and then we’ll give it a try ourselves!!! How creative.

  14. Ms. Yingling says

    March 22, 2010 at 6:05 am

    So today I can either get real work done or create poetry with book spines. Why does gluing books sound so much less appealing now?

    • Travis says

      March 26, 2010 at 5:04 pm

      Ha – yes, I know there are few things more entertaining that book repair. I’m glad you found a distraction.

  15. Marjorie Light says

    March 22, 2010 at 8:28 pm

    What a wonderful activity! Our school librarian happened to pop in my ELA class today and I showed him (& my students) your post. We are all excited to try this and have already started planning to make some cool posters for our library. Thanks so much for sharing!

    • Travis says

      March 26, 2010 at 5:03 pm

      Library posters sounds like a great idea!

  16. Kat Kan says

    March 25, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    Chiming in late – I only just found this yesterday. My school library partner and I are going to run a book spine poetry “contest” in our school library; we’ll be posting our students’ work on our school’s website. Such a great idea!

    • Travis says

      March 26, 2010 at 5:02 pm

      That’s very cool – I think kids will really get into it. Send me a link when you post it!

  17. Kym says

    March 25, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    Thanks for sharing this unique idea. What a great way to unite poetry and prose! It’s one of those ideas that gets your feet bouncing on the springs to even more ideas. This could be fun to do with the first lines of novels too. Thanks again!

  18. Lynda Shoup says

    March 30, 2010 at 6:52 pm

    This is a wonderful idea! I can’t wait to start trying it myself. Thanks for sharing this.

  19. ASG says

    April 3, 2010 at 3:17 am

    I enjoyed this post a lot and decided to play along. You may see the humble results of my experimentation here — my friends also made some pretty great contributions in the comments.

  20. Nathan says

    April 5, 2010 at 8:15 am

    WIN AT LIFE

  21. Leah says

    April 8, 2010 at 11:12 am

    I am looking forward to starting a book spine poetry club at my school. (What a brilliant idea!) Do you have any recommendations on how to get kids started? Did you pull a ton of books to get them going? How did you focus their brainstorming? Thanks for any ideas you can share!

    • Travis says

      April 8, 2010 at 1:31 pm

      Hello! It’s cool to hear that you’re interested in giving book spine poetry a shot with your students. Here would be my tips:

      1. Either bring students to the gallery online:
      https://100scopenotes.com/2010/03/30/poetry-month-gallery-student-book-spine-poems/
      or print some of the gallery examples and show them. I don’t think there is any better way to explain spine poetry than to show it.

      2. Give students paper and pencil. Since students won’t have any idea what their poem will be when they start, it helps to be able to write down titles that they might want to use. They can return to their favorites later. It’s amazing how quick you can forget things when you’re browsing.

      3. Look before you pull. A project like this can easily become a shelving nightmare. Encourage students to look first, and only pull books when they are assembling their final poem.

  22. PragmaticMom says

    March 4, 2011 at 8:11 am

    Love the spine book galleries but, alas, the trick of getting all the books if the library does not have them when you want them and you don’t own them all which is always my issue!

  23. Karen Gray Ruelle says

    March 5, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    What fun!

  24. DeAndra says

    March 14, 2011 at 8:18 am

    Oh my goodness, this gave me a giggle early in the morning. I love this project. Great job!

  25. Sue says

    March 14, 2011 at 1:11 pm

    FUN!! I will definitely try this with my 7th graders. They will love it!

  26. Nancy C says

    March 21, 2011 at 11:49 am

    Just did this with my fourth graders – they loved it!!! Thanks for sharing all the wonderful poems!

    Happy World Poetry Day!

Trackbacks

  1. A Snapshot of Spiney Poetry « Kathryn Apel says:
    March 13, 2010 at 1:00 am

    […] Today my twitter tweet chirruped a peck of poetry. A spiney, to be precise. I first read about it here at Travis’ site, and of course, decided to try some of my own. The three-lined poems […]

  2. dmm says:
    March 17, 2010 at 10:53 am

    100 Scope Notes – Children's Lit…

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  3. Happy St. Patrick’s Day Links « Bib-Laura-graphy says:
    March 17, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    […] latest awesome thing at 100 Scope Notes – Spine Poetry!  Check out the collection of submissions, […]

  4. Book Blog - Bookends - Children’s Book Reviews - Booklist Online » Blog Archive » Book Spine Poem says:
    March 18, 2010 at 3:16 pm

    […] Over at 100 Scope Notes Travis is building a gallery of book spine poems. I was fascinated by this idea and had to try it out. Since this is Women’s History Month I […]

  5. Links: book spine poetry, Hilary Duff as author, and a defense of gaming « Librarified says:
    March 23, 2010 at 1:09 pm

    […] Scope Notes had a great post earlier this month with book spine poetry. I love […]

  6. ALSC Blog » Blog Archive » Celebrate Poetry Month with Book Spine Poems says:
    March 30, 2010 at 3:36 pm

    […] children’s literature blog, 100 Scope Notes, and challenge others to give it a try. There were a bunch of outstanding takers, including teachers, librarians, and […]

  7. Shouting Gorilla Book Blog » Blog Archive » Around the interwebs says:
    April 1, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    […] of 100 Scope Notes has compiled a gallery of book spine poems and it is marvelous. I was too lame to remember to make one, but do check out all the awesome poems […]

  8. Poetry Challenge, Day 1 | Mr. Kabodian's Blog says:
    April 1, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    […] first poem is actually a collection of Book Spine Poems I read on Travis Jonker’s blog. It’s a novel idea and one I hope to incorporate into my class this month. My favorite from […]

  9. Librarified » Links: book spine poetry, Hilary Duff as author, and a defense of gaming says:
    April 17, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    […] Scope Notes had a great post earlier this month with book spine poetry. I love […]

  10. BPL Teens » Blog Archive » Awesome stuff: Book spine poems says:
    April 20, 2010 at 10:44 pm

    […] https://100scopenotes.com/2010/03/12/poetry-friday-book-spine-poem-gallery/ […]

  11. A Totally Stupid Poem « BoxofChocolates29's Blog says:
    May 6, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    […] i saw this post the other day called a book-spine poem and wondered, “what in the world is a book-spine poem?” well, it’s basically where you set up book, spines out,  and read the titles as […]

  12. Fourth Grade Spine Poetry | mrspetersonreads says:
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    […] to Travis Jonker, for the ideas on his blog and the ALSC […]

  13. The View From Here - The Long Winter: a Book Spine Poem says:
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    […] long enjoyed the book spine poems invented by Travis Jonker at 100 Scope Notes, and this year I finally decided to try my hand at […]

  14. BOOK SPINE POETRY | iMe4schools says:
    April 28, 2013 at 9:13 am

    […] For additional inspiration, check out these examples of book spine poetry. […]

  15. Term 3 | iLearn @ DHS says:
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    […] a look at this Spine Poem Gallery by […]

  16. April is Poetry Month - Caroline Starr Rose says:
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  17. TeenSpace Blog » Book Spine Poetry says:
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  18. Book Spine Poem : says:
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  19. SHARE: More poetry links says:
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  20. Drop In and Hang Out: Book Spine Poetry | hushlander says:
    May 4, 2015 at 5:35 pm

    […] concept. Some quick Googling tells me it was invented by the always awesome Travis Jonker over at 100 Scope Notes. Anyhow, you simply take books and stack them together so that the titles on the spines create a […]

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