BHS Library Hosts Spine Label Poetry Contest

Published May 3, 2013

Dozens of Brentwood High School students celebrated National Poetry Month this April by participating in the school library's Spine Label Poetry Contest.

Spine Label Poetry is a style of poetry known as found poetry, which is when someone uses the words of others and rearranges them in the form of a poem.

Participation in the contest was high and caught the attention of English teachers Jean Kleine-Kracht, Kate Puncochar and Sue Mounts who recognized it as an innovative way to integrate poetry standards such as poetic devices, symbolism and interpreting meaning into their instruction.

"My students were enthralled with the idea that you did not need to be a Robert Frost to create a really profound, poetic thought," said Mounts.

"By choosing book titles that shared a common theme, they could easily create their own spine book poem. It was a great success and emphasized once again that poetry really is all around us."

Once the poems were created, students used iPads to take a picture with their books and upload it to a Spine Label Poetry Google site along with a text version of the poem and an explanation of their theme, title choice and overall experience.

Brentwood High School student Margaret Overton was named the winner of the contest for her poem entitled American Politics. She will receive gift cards to Starbucks, iTunes and Barnes & Noble.