How to Write a Book Poem

Maybe you want to write poetry, but can’t find the words, or perhaps you’re already eloquent and poetically blessed, but are looking for a new direction, or maybe you’re just looking for a fun way to be creative. If any of these apply, writing a book poem might be for you.

I first heard about writing book poems on Twitter, of all places, when someone I followed posted one. It took me a while to figure out what it was—especially because the poem was in a photo, but once I did, I was enchanted and intrigued, and could barely wait to write one of my own.

What exactly is a book poem and how do you write one? It’s simple.

In its most simple, basic form, a book poem is a poem created by compiling the titles of books.

As an example, one of my book poems (using six books) goes like this:

Keep Going

There’s No Such Place as Far Away

Dreams and Fantasies

The Greatest Gift

Life is What You Make It

Choosing Happiness.

(Books written by (in order) Marshall, Bach, Rapisarda (editor), Van Doren Stern, Buffett, Ray.)

Get it?

If you’ve got books, and the more you have the better (or at least the easier for this project, though you can still do it with only a small handful), you can write a book poem. The more familiar you are with what books you’ve got on hand, the more fun you can have.

One problem you might have in trying to create a poem is the feeling of being overwhelmed, and not knowing where—or how—to begin. That’s where knowing what you have on hand can be very helpful. You can pick a theme and then look through the books you have on hand that will fill the bill.

For instance, knowing that I had a lot of mysteries on my bookshelves, I challenged myself to write a poem about murder. Here’s what that challenge produced:

The Perfect Murder

Motive

Crime and Punishment

Les Misérables.

(Books written (in order) by Hitt (editor), Kellerman, Dostoyevsky, Hugo.)

Fun, isn’t it?

Here’s another book poem I created.

Possibility of Being

Human, All too Human

You are Enough

You are Invisible.

(Books written by (in order) Rilke, Nietzsche, Walker, Baker.)

If working from a theme doesn’t work for you, or still seems overwhelming or confusing, there’s another way to start the process of writing a book poem. And it may be easier.

Go to your bookshelves, grab a bunch of books randomly, and then sit with them to see what you’ve got. Then there are several ways to proceed.

Read the titles, see if one sounds like a starting point (or ending point!) for a poem and go from there, either using the books you’ve already selected, or with inspiration from the start or end revisit your bookshelves.

Put random books together and see if any of them seem to flow.

Group the books in various ways such as binding color, book size, paper or hard cover, old or new to see if inspiration results.

Don’t let this stress you out, or work too hard at it. Just as writing poetry is a creative form of expression, so should this be. And while many poets struggle for long periods of time to find just the right words to create the perfect poem, this shouldn’t be one of those creations.

The whole point of this process really is to have fun.

So let down your hair, put down your pencil or pen, go to your bookshelves, and write a book poem.

In the spirit of writing this article, I decided to write another book poem.

Here it is:

On Writing

Being in Balance

Just Who Will You Be?

Healthy Wealthy Happy .

(Books written (in order) by King, Dyer, Shriver, Barker.)