March 2026 Slice of Life, No. 13
#PoetryFriday, 26_0313
I’ve always been drawn to found poetry. I love lifting someone’s thoughts, their subject, their words to create something new. I’m familiar with four kinds of found poetry.
- We can find poems in any type of text, even a dictionary page — blackout poetry or cut-up poetry or erasure poetry.
- We can find poems in lines taken from poems of another poet, combining those lines to create centro poetry.
- We can find poems in the titles of books, hence, book spine poetry.
- We can find end words for our lines of our poem in a famous line or poem to create golden shovel poetry.
Today, I am sharing about book spine poetry.
1
Pull a few books from your shelves.
Stack them so their spines are like lines.
Read their spines, one after the other.
Ponder their words, visualize.
Don’t think of the contents of the book.
Let just the words of the title inspire you.
Play with the order.
Read them again.
Take a snapshot.
a book spine poem by alice nine
Time to eat
Just one bite
Gobble it up!
Lizards for lunch
Thunder cake
Eat, Leo! Eat!
2
Remove some books.
Rearrange.
Read again.
Take a snapshot.
a book spine poem by alice nine
Eat, Leo! Eat!
Spider’s lunch*
Just one bite
Gobble it up!
*”Spider’s lunch” read as “Spider is lunch”
3
Add some books.
Read again.
Take a snapshot.
a book spine poem by alice nine
Spider’s lunch*
Time to eat
Just one bite
Gobble it up
Lizards for lunch
Thunder cake
Eat, Leo! Eat!
*”Spider’s lunch” read as “Spider is lunch”
4
Start a new stack.
Read and arrange.
Take a snapshot.
a book spine poem by alice nine
Hip-pocket Papa
A frog in the bog
Just like my papa
The old bullfrog
5
Be creative.
Let your imagination soar.
A description unfolds,
a word of wisdom emerges,
a story surfaces
In the form of a poem.
You’ll be amazed.
Beware! It’s addictive!
This slice has been posted on #SOLC26 and #PoetryFriday
Thank you Two Writing Teachers
for hosting Slice of Life Tuesday Challenge
Thank you Linda at Teacher Dance
for hosting this week’s #PoetryFriday Roundup
where Alice Nine teaches language lessons that
Empower Students to Read and Write
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I’m so glad you visited today,
and I do enjoy hearing from you!
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It’s great to see you here, Alice! These are such fun, and now I will look to see what I have to gather! I won’t easily forget your poems about food when I see still another title that connects in some way! Thanks for sharing your own creations!
Alice, fun book spine poems. I like the idea of rearranging and finding more with subtle differences. The lizards for lunch would make children laugh!
Those are fun! I love found poetry, too.