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
LIke/Follow Alice Nine Academy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alice.nine.academy
I’m so glad you visited today,
and I do enjoy hearing from you!
Please share below.
Your comment will appear as soon as Alice Nine reads it.
These are super fun. I just gave a presentation about poetry in the library this weekend and talked about spine poetry.
So much fun, Alice! Your poems waylaid my Sunday afternoon as I began poem-building with the library book stack in front of me. Thank you!
Well, I am headed right down to my bookshelf to see what poems may lie in wait there!
I like seeing the variations as you shuffle the books around.
You will have to share what you find.
I love all the found poetry! It IS so addictive! Your spine poetry is perfection!
Thank you. Finding a found poem is like putting a puzzle together without the picture; you don’t know what it will be like until you get the pieces all connected just right.
Love these — so clever!! I do enjoy spine poems but I will pass on having lizards for lunch. 🙂 Are you familiar with Annette Simon’s spine poems book?
No, I’m not. but thank you for introducing it to me. I love the ones she has written that are on line. I think book spines work so well because titles are concise with heavy words that double and triple with meaning, that draw you into the covers of the book. Put four or more of those together and you have a poem that keeps drawing you into it.
Yes, well said! There’s a certain knack for doing spine poems really well, so I really appreciate yours. 🙂
Here’s the review I did for Annette’s book:
https://jamarattigan.com/2022/09/30/review-giveaway-spine-poems-by-annette-dauphin-simon/
I love book spine poetry, and yours are such fun examples!
Coincidentally, I almost did a found poem this week based on titles of books I’ve read in the last couple of months. I should head back to that draft!
Yes! finish your book spine poem and share it!
Oh, love all your poems, and love your idea to reshuffle the titles! So fun!!!
There is so much you can do with book spines… For a twist, use the titles for the even lines and you write the odd lines.
Alice, spine poems are addictive but so much fun. Thank you for lining up your books to creeate a sequence of spine poems. I enjoyed all of them.
It’s SO addictive. I recently did book spine poetry with students learning to speak English. It was so much fun.
Hi Alice. It’s been a while, but great to reconnect with you and your post brimming with poetic energy. Your variations on spine poetry are so seamlessly connected and inventive. Your delight in the process shines through. Well done, you!
Thank you, Alan. Yes, it has been a while. I have missed this community.
You clearly had a lot of fun with this! I liked seeing your process using the same books and reshuffling!
Yes. It is a fun way to write. The only downside is having to reshelve the books. Fortunately, I’ve kept my books organized in baskets like I did in my classroom.
These are just so fun! I wish I wasn’t mostly an e-reader. Maybe a trip to the library is in order!
I have soooo many picture books and chapter books from my classroom / staff development days. But I can see standing in a library and creating book spine poems… or maybe even a bookstore.
So much fun! Thank you for sharing.
Fun is good!
I appreciate your descriptions of found poetry. I only knew some of those. I love the book spine poetry. I used to have SO many poetry books when I was in the classroom. I’m not sure how many I brought home with me when I retired. I’ll have to find my stack & check.
I love the unexpected that I come across in found poetry.
These worked out well! I like the Hip-pocket one. Maybe because of the rhythm created by the rhyme??? I love creating them and usually do at least one this month.
It’s my favorite too… probably because of the rhyme, repetition, the obvious similar content, and syllables in each line. Usually book titles don’t work out that well. When I pulled those 4 books I felt like I’d hit the jackpot.
I do lie boo spine poetry. In fact, that is my post for today as well.
Oh, fun! I will check it out.
Such fun with book spine poems! When I did this in my classroom the kids removed so many books from the shelves, it became quite the chore to reshelve. I like how you’ve chosen a few and rearranged. My grandson’s name is Leo, so I am attracted to the ones with “Eat, Leo, Eat”.
Oh, what fun it would be to gift “Eat, Leo, Eat” to your grandson. It is a delightful family story about a boy and his grandmother, his Nonna.
A great idea if you’re searching for a poem. A clever way to connect with other authors, too. Thanks for the imspiration!
There are so many possibilities with book spines and kids love it because they don’t have to come up the words; they just get to play with them.
I love found poetry and how accessible it is. I’m so glad you mixed things up and showed so many possibilities along with your own original poetry. I’ve been trying to be a bit more playful with my writing, and your post reminds me of the rewards of doing that. Well done!
Thank you. “Playful with my writing…” I think that describes why found poems are well received by kids.
Grateful for your inspiration this morning. I am in the process of planning a Family Literacy Night for April and this is a station I envision that both students and parents would enjoy.
Oh, a book spine poem center would be great fun. I’d love doing that at a school Family Literacy Night. Take pictures and publish them for a class/school display/post.
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!
Thank you. It’s been a long absence. It’s amazing how many picturebooks have food as a subject of supporting thread.
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!
Kids like lizards so titles with them are always a hit. I like changing the meaning of spider’s in “Spider’s Lunch” from a possessive to a contraction… in that poem we are eating both spiders and lizards for lunch.
Those are fun! I love found poetry, too.
It’s a fun way to get kids to play with words and to introduce books and authors to students.