Spine Poetry
Until earlier this month, I didn’t know spine poetry was a thing—but now I do, and I love it. Many thanks to my literary partner (and pop-culture bestie) Alex for introducing me to this form. As April is National Poetry Month, I hereby present to you the first poems I’ve written in decades*!
![](http://bethanysnyder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/F1D644E5-585B-44EE-9376-06113294CA91-4-1024x1024.jpg)
Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls
A round-heeled woman
(the female persuasion)
—clothing optional—
Entering the stream:
“Carry me across the water,
in the heart of the sea.”
![](http://bethanysnyder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/6F582A9B-AB80-48BB-89F3-B300AC6D1186-1024x1024.jpg)
Tabloid baby,
wild child,
pulled from the river,
until I find you—alive—
running with scissors,
arise!
The doubtful guest,
the ghost
at Skeleton Rock.
![](http://bethanysnyder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/7066EF53-CE13-4BA5-9929-57814C5CD92A-1024x1024.jpg)
Fierce Conversations
The company she keeps—
stern men (a confederacy of dunces)—
do they scare you?
Part of a bigger universe,
parasites like us
blink when things fall apart.
Go,
tell it on the mountain:
even cowgirls
get the blues.
![](http://bethanysnyder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/3BE7C064-AAA9-43A5-83FD-B6E8B292A92F-1024x1024.jpg)
If you want
to write no more
secondhand art,
no need for speed.
Refund bad habits
(a delusion of satan).
The mind palace,
on writing 20th century ghosts,
travels in time.
![](http://bethanysnyder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/B7A32E5C-C296-4D74-8C82-44EF132B089E-1024x1024.jpg)
The first four years:
on the banks
of plum creek,
little house
in the big woods.
The long winter:
by the shores
of silver lake
(farmer boy).
Little
house on the prairie,
Little
town on the prairie,
these
happy
golden
years.
*Mostly sappy laments about boys who didn’t love me, but also there was one poem about Jenga that I wrote for the poetry class I was forced to take in college.