The charismatic chaos of museums, captured in book spines.

While I just missed National Poetry Month, I wanted to play with an idea I encountered from Maria Popova on her always creative, interesting, and well-worth-reading site Brain Pickings.  During April (actual National Poetry Month), she shared a series of posts that showcased her talents in the field of book spine poetry (aka using the titles of books printed on their spines to create freeform poetry).  Apparently book spine poems have been all the rage these past few years, so I thought I would try my hand in some creative book spine arrangement.  Here is my first attempt:

The inadvertent poets:

• Museums in a Troubled World by Robert Janes — although his subtitle frightens me, “Renewal, Irrelevance, or Collapse?”
• Letting Go? edited by Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski, and a great read that shows how much art museums can learn from the practices of public history.
• Engaging Art edited by Steven Tepper and Bill Ivey, includes the great essay “Artistic Expression in the Age of Participatory Culture” by Henry Jenkins and Vanessa Bertozzi.
• Conversation Pieces, the excellent book by Grant Kester on creating understanding in contemporary art through creative dialogue.
• Making Museums Matter by Stephen Weil — just read this recap of Nina Simon’s 2011 MidAtlantic speech.
• Teaching in the Art Museum by Rika Burnham and Elliott Kai-Kee, the Jedi knights of museum education.
• Out of Our Minds by Sir Ken Robinson — although you’d think he could come up with a more creative title (joking).

Submit your own!

Send me your own book spine poem on museums — just use TwitPic or shoot me a link to your pic via Twitter @murawski27.  I will happily post everyone’s poems that I receive, and we can add to volume 1 of book spine poetry.  It can be a great way to take a midday break, and take a few minutes to tap into your creative self.

Book Spine Poem from Stephanie Ruse ‏ @smruse

Awesome!  Thanks Stephanie!