Annette Dauphin Simon, author of Spine Poems, An Eclectic Collection of Found Verse for Book Lovers, came to Barbee Library on December 9th and shared her thoughts on creating her striking and unusual book of poetry composed from the titles on book spines.

It’s not often that I completely fall in love with a book of poetry — Spine Poems is just such a book.  What a wonderful treasure of spine poems—brilliant, funny, and thought-provoking. Southport resident Annette Dauphin Simon became obsessed (and later addicted) to creating spine poems while working at a bookstore in Florida.  

Simon has created a beautiful book of over 100 spine poems.  Each selection of book spines is lovingly photographed to share the art of each poem and also displayed in text for easy reading.  Each poem is also supported by interesting facts and trivia.

The book is divided into sections within the umbrellas of fiction and nonfiction.  For example, you will find sections on Love and Romance, Business, Cooking, Parenting, and so much more.  

Simon herself was funny, self-deprecating and humble in talking about publishing this book, given the number of hours of selecting and stacking books, research for the facts and trivia and narrowing down the number of poems to make the book. (She started with 200 poems.)

An already published and well-known children’s author, Spine Poems is Simon’s first book for adults.  She is working on a children’s edition of spine poems poetry.

Please check out this book from either Barbee or Harper Public Libraries.  You might just fall in love with it as I have!