I was inspired to try some book spine poetry over the weekend when I saw poems Fiction Fan and Cathy at 746 Books recently created. Both came up with some fabulous poems, I’m not so sure about mine although I have hunted high and low through my plentiful bookshelves to produce something. So you can admire the books if nothing else!
How it all began…
The woman before me,
A small deceit, hidden lives
Green eye, the guilty one
The end of the affair.
Then I decided to move from low level misery to real darkness with my next attempt, luckily for you all it is short!
Standing in the shadows
I let you go, Underworld
Go to sleep!
And for my last effort something which hopefully has a touch of poignancy about it…
One last dance, what she left…
The light behind the window,
The memory of lost senses,
The secret place
The ghost of Lily Painter
In other news I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who voted in my poll last weekend on what is the key to making you select a book – I thought I’d share the results with you.
- 35% of the votes went to the subject matter which I suppose isn’t surprising
- 28% of you depend on reviews from other readers, something that makes me happy because I hope mine are included in that mix
- The cover has a fairly big impact with 16% opting for this method
I left a section free for ‘other’ which polled at about 15% with comments included
- All of the above, and then, something whimsical, like it pulled me in – I liked this answer because sometimes I buy on a whim
- Author
- Ratings on Goodreads
- I have no idea
At the bottom of the results with two votes each came
- Setting
- Publisher
Thanks for joining in and hopefully this will hammer home to publishers and authors how very important that synopsis is – we aren’t all going to want to read your book so let those readers that are into your subject, be it on a whim or otherwise a strong pointer!
Cleopatra Loves Books 
Some interesting results there, Cleo, well done – and very ambitious creating book spine poetry from nothing but titles. I cheat a little: I take a random pile of books and then set about writing a poem based on the titles (but add my own bits in). Useful exercise for warming up the old writing muscles!
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It was far harder than I expected but I tried… I was debating adding words in but decided to stay true to the form 😏
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These are great! Don’t think I’d have anything worthwhile on my shelf or even be able to string them together:)
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It was so hard, I’ve spent a week re-arranging books to try and come up with something 😏
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Book spine poetry really neat idea…your’s more than very tidy … I really liked them … most of my books are boxed up in the loft…I feel an ascent coming on! I do something a little similar with ‘six words’, from time to time I’ll knock out and blog poems based entirely on those I use to tweet…I find it never pays to ignore or throw words away…they always have a use in some way…someday.
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Considering how many books I own I thought this would be quite easy – it wasn’t – I’m most pleased with the first one which I think worked relatively well.
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Fabulous idea that looks very hard to put into practice!
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I should have filmed myself trying that would have been entertaining for you to watch – I pulled out a fair few books out and then stacked them up in different orders – harder than I thought it would be, but good fun.
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That would have been an amusing twist!!
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Love this! Away to search my book shelves later.
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Oh I do hope you do this too – it was fun if harder than I expected.
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These are brilliant Cleo, really poignant and melancholy!
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Melancholic I mean!
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Ah thank you – it was hard!!
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These are excellent, Cleo. I particularly like the first one – lovely flow to it.
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I was most pleased with the first one thank you
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I bet it was tough to put those titles into a sequence that told a story. I was thinking the more books yiu had, the better thr choice but then realised maybe this is one case where too many choices might get in the way.
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Haha I think I fell into the trap of thinking I had plenty of options and then struggled to find a starting place…
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Your book spine poems are beautiful, I enjoyed reading them. I especially loved the first one – it works so well as a poem.
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Thank you – I was most proud of the first one too 🙂
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Oh, your poetry is fantastic, Cleo! I especially admire the way you created different moods with them. Your poems are evocative, too.
And thanks very much for sharing the poll results. I’m not surprised that you had several people saying that subject matter draws them to a book; it makes intuitive sense.
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Why thank you Margot – I did worry that mine would all sound a bit blood-thirsty so it’s good to hear that my efforts on that front worked!
The poll was really good and although I wasn’t surprised at the top result the positioning of the others was interesting.
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Great job on the book spine poetry, Cleo!
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Thank you!
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I love these. Really creative.
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Thank you – you should give it a go!
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You know I’ve been looking at book spines ever since. I can see it getting addictive.
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I know I’m still doing it – I may have to do a part two
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Sorry I missed your poll – I must check I’m receiving your posts. I seem to be getting a lot of rubbish in my inbox at the moment – that’s what I get for entering competitions and suchlike. I must admit I’m a sucker for a good cover, but subject matter is number one. Great idea!
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Not to worry I have a similar problem with my inbox – I’ve tried to put some rules in but it’s like trying to herd jelly! I’m with you, the subject matter is key and then other elements come into play for the decision making!
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Woo, good stuff! I like the short one – very dark! With our tastes in books it’s quite hard to make unplifting ones, though, isn’t it? 😉
I’m surprised so few people look at publishers – not in general, maybe, but people who book blog and use NetGalley. And also surprised that so many people are drawn in by covers – I like good covers, but I don’t think often actually persuade me to try a book. Interesting!
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It was tough to get it to work at all and you made it look so easy 😉
I’m surprised too despite never noticing until I started reviewing for my blog – I’m not really a cover person as much as I enjoy a good one but that probably has something to do with the genre of books I read.
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