Book-Spine & Acrostic-Spine Poetry

NOTE:

This was originally published on my Rainbow Stormcast substack on April 19th 2023.

The plan is to move selected posts from my substack over here before deleting it entirely.

Substack has become too comfortable with platforming fascists.

DISCLAIMER:

All writing and art created by Lucas Scheelk / Sa’ar Keshet is 100% human-made, and does NOT use generative AI or ChatGPT.

This page does NOT endorse generative AI or ChatGPT.

Any writing and/or art created by Lucas Scheelk / Sa’ar Keshet may NOT be used for generative AI or ChatGPT, and permission will NOT be given for that purpose.

BOOK-SPINE & ACROSTIC-SPINE POETRY LESSON

Popularized by Nina Katchadourian’s 1993 Sorted Books Project, a book-spine poem is creating a poem using book-spines.

Some go from top-to-bottom. Bottom-to-top.

Fewer book-spine poems read from right-to-left (or vice versa), but it’s possible.

Nina Katchadourian’s challenge to readers in The Art Assignment:

Book-Spine Poetry Examples

[using the top book as the title] | [mixture of personal books & public library books]

In book-spine poetry, depending on which direction you start, the first book used would be the title.

In the first example, “Gender Outlaws” is the title.

Another thing to play with is the use of grammar (adding plurals, conjunctions, etc.).

After finishing a book-spine poem, add a source note on which books are used and include all author’s names (credit is required!).

Example #1:

Example #2:

Example #3:

HOW TO MAKE AN ACROSTIC-SPINE POEM

Bouncing off of Nina Katchidourian’s book-spine poetry format (see: 1993 Sorted Books Project), acrostic-spine poetry is an acrostic poem using book-spines.

Scheelk originated the acrostic-spine format in January 2023.

STEP ONE: Remember that in an acrostic poem, (usually, though not always) the first letter of each line is used to make a word or phrase

STEP TWO: Think of a word or phrase that you want to utilize in your acrostic-spine poem

STEP THREE: Gather books whose titles start with the same letter as with the intended word/phrase for each line

STEP FOUR: The first book in your stack does not need to be the title of your acrostic-spine poem (unlike a book-spine poem), since there may not be a book with the same title as the intended word/phrase

STEP FIVE: Arrange the books in your stack (one method is from top-to-bottom) so that the book-spines spell out the intended word or phrase similar to an acrostic poem

STEP SIX: Add a source note on which books are used and include all author’s names (credit is required!)

Using acrostic rules, I utilize the first letter of the book title in the book-spine (in each line) to create a word or phrase.

For this example, the title of the piece is MAD MENSCH:

Places where you can experiment with book-spine & acrostic-spine poetry:

• Home library

• School library

• Public library

• Synagogues, Mosques, and other religious spaces

• Community centers

• & anywhere you find a stack of books!

You don’t need a degree to be a poet!

SOURCES:

• Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation (Kate Bornstein & S. Bear Bergman)

• Shekhinah Speaks (Joy Ladin)

• Dead Dad Jokes (Ollie Schminkey)

• A Prayer For A Non-Religious Autistic (Lucas Scheelk)

• A Million Quiet Revolutions (Robin Gow)

• More Than Organs (Kay Ulanday Barrett)

• Water I Won't Touch (Kayleb Rae Candrilli)

• knot body (Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch)

• Tiny Pieces of Skull (Roz Kaveney)

• wound from the mouth of a wound (torrin a. greathouse)

• Don’t Call Us Dead (Danez Smith)

• Whose Torah?: A Concise Guide to Progressive Judaism (Whose Religion?) (Rebecca T. Alpert)

• The Best Awful (Carrie Fisher)

• Minyan: Ten Principles for Living a Life of Integrity (Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro)

• Spock’s World (Diane Duane)

• Ghosts and Golems (Michele Palmer & Malka Penn)

• Born To Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods (Michael Wex)

• An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison)

• OMG! That’s Me! (Dave Mowry)

• Referential Body (Rosie Accola)

• Twice Blessed: On Being Lesbian or Gay, and Jewish (Christie Balka & Andy Rose)

• Depression & Other Magic Tricks (Sabrina Benaim)

• The Uninhabitable (Jesse Rice-Evans)

• Mishkan Aveilut: Where Grief Resides (Central Conference of American Rabbis)

• Beyond Victims and Villains: Contemporary Plays by Disabled Playwrights (ed. Victoria Ann Lewis)

• Embodied: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology (ed. Wendy Chin-Tanner & Tyler Chin-Tanner)

• Indecent (Paula Vogel)

• Capable Monsters (Marlin M. Jenkins)

• If You Can't Say Anything Nice, Say It in Yiddish: The Book of Yiddish Insults and Curses (Lita Epstein)

• Mask For Mask (JD Scott)

• Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories From The Twenty-First Century (edited by Alice Wong)

• Mourning & Mitzvah: A Guided Journal for Walking the Mourner’s Path Through Grief to Healing (Anne Brener)

• Exiled in the Word: Poems & Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to Present (ed. Jerome Rothenberg & Harris Lenowitz)

• Next to Normal (music by: Tom Kitt; book and lyrics by: Brian Yorkey)

• Shekhina (photographs by: Leonard Nimoy)

• Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid (Shayda Kafai)

• How We Live Now: Scenes from the Pandemic (Bill Hayes)

SIGNAL BOOST

1. Autistic People of Color Fund

2. Keep Hope Alive: Gaza Giving Circle

3. Worldwide Mask Bloc Directory

4. Crips for eSims for Gaza

5. The Sameer Project

6. Black Trans Academic Targeted and Fined for Pro-Palestine Speech

7. Lifeline 4 Gaza

8. Workshops 4 Gaza