National Poetry Month is Coming! How to Make Book Spine Poems with Your Students or Patrons

Ever since I discovered Nina Katchadourian’s Sorted Books project, I’ve been banging the drum for book spine cento poems. National Poetry Month (April) is coming up, and it’s the perfect time to give it a shot. It makes a great program for kids (or former kids). So . . .

Here are my tips for creating a book spine cento:

1. Check out the book spine poem gallery for inspiration.
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. Start arranging on paper. This way you don’t have to pull all the books off the shelf until you have your final poem.
5. Don’t be afraid to use the library catalog (if available) to look up titles with specific words or phrases that fit.
6. Once you have your poem, pull the books from the shelf arrange them, and take a picture of it.

Additional Resources:

What is a cento?

Sorted Books by Nina Katchadourian

National Poetry Month website

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