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March 7, 2013 by Travis Jonker

Wanted: Any and All Book Spine Poems

March 7, 2013 by Travis Jonker   4 comments

20130307-133132.jpg

It’s about to get poetic in here!!!

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April is National Poetry Month. And around this neck of the woods the poetry form of choice is the book spine cento. What’s a cento?

Check out the 2012 Book Spine Poem Gallery to find out.

Or take a look at the work of Nina Katchadourian.

Students, teachers, librarians, book lovers, weird people who just like stacking things – let’s kick off National Poetry Month in style. Create your own book spine poem, snap a picture, and email it to me (scopenotes (at) gmail (dot) com) or post it to your blog and let me know. On Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013 I’ll post a gallery with all of the entries I receive, and I’ll add to it for the entire month of April.

Here are my tips for creating a book spine cento:

  1. Check out last year’s book spine poem gallery for inspiration (see link above).
  2. Get to a place with plenty of books. A library works nicely. Or a large home collection.
  3. Start looking at titles, and see what strikes you. Arrange and rearrange in your head. The best part of this type of poetry is the fact that you don’t know where you’ll end up.
  4. Have a pencil and paper with you to write down titles that stand out – you can refer back to them later.
  5. Don’t be afraid to use the library catalog to look up titles with specific words or phrases that fit.

Give it a try, send it my way, and see your work in these here pages on April 2nd.

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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. Author Aileen Stewart says

    March 7, 2013 at 5:55 pm

    What a fun idea. My poem is on it’s way to you :0)

  2. Monica says

    March 9, 2013 at 1:19 pm

    Ok, I created a jump rope rhyme. I don’t know if it’s worthy or not. 🙂
    http://mgudlewski.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/a-book-spine-jump-rope-rhyme/

    • Travis Jonker says

      March 10, 2013 at 12:31 pm

      This is great! Rhyming book spine poems are very difficult to pull off – thanks or giving it a shot!

      • Monica says

        March 15, 2013 at 2:01 pm

        Thanks, Travis. I’ve added a book spine haiku and now I’m going to stop before getting addicted to this. http://mgudlewski.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/a-drop-of-water/

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