The Great Book-Spine Poetry Challenge
Brooklyn-based artist Nina Katchadourian has been visiting public and private book collections to create book-spine poetry for her Sorted Books project since 1993. She photographs books, stacked so that the titles create beautiful poems, heart-breaking observations, and snarky one-liners that convey the unique nature of each collection. Things like:
Primitive Art
Just Imagine
Picasso
Raised By Wolves
and
Amateurs At War
Cease Firing
Through The Wall
Most recently, she dug into the Delaware Art Museum's Helen Farr Sloan Library to create an exhibit called Once Upon A Time In Delaware/In Quest Of The Perfect Book. It will be on display at the museum through September 16. She talks more about how the idea came about and her process in this video:
The minute I saw this, I was dying to try it, so let's have some fun. Create spine poetry out of your own personal book collection and post your results in the comments. You might even come up with something that you can use as your writing prompt for today. At the very least, you'll make some cool art. Whatcha got?
News by Kimberly Turner
Kimberly Turner is an internet entrepreneur, DJ, editor, beekeeper, linguist, traveler, and writer. This either makes her exceptionally well-rounded or slightly crazy; it’s hard to say which. She spent a decade as a journalist and magazine editor in Australia and the U.S. and is now working (very, very slowly) on her first novel. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing and an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, two cats, ten fish, and roughly 60,000 bees.
To leave a comment
Comments
I'm computer illiterate. I'm trying to post my picture, but I can't figure it out. Help?
Hey NotMarilyn. I'm no computer genius myself, but I think the easiest way to do it is to put them up online somewhere (Facebook, Tumblr, blog, where ever) then hit the little icon for "image" in the upper right area of the comment box (fifth from the right, top row) and put in the URL for the image. Mine are all in this public Facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150939312672237.401362.589192...
Ha, that's a great one, Kim. I'm so going to do this as soon as my day slows down. *starts looking at shelves
Manners for men.
Etiquette for gentlemen
- on booze.
Live,
For a living.
Drinking,
Smoking,
And screwing.
Choke the last
American Valentine.
The beautiful
And damned.
Believe it or not, I have a whole blog post about book spine poetry! http://annieneugebauer.com/2012/02/20/book-title-poems/
I even link to other people's attempts. It's a fun project. =)
I guess the image adder button hates me, so here's mine :) The photo is public (hopefully) so you should be able to see it.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=477132485630666&set=a.10600447607...