There is a poetry-writing exercise out there that proposes to take the structure of a poem from a table of contents. The idea always seemed to be a bit strange or artificial to me. Today I opened up Italo Calvino's novel If on a winter's night a traveler. The way that the TOC is laid out unfold in a very interesting and poetic way:

CONTENTS

1
If on a winter's night a traveler
2
Outside the town of Malbork
3
Leaning from the steep slope
4
Without fear of wind or vertigo
5
Looks down in the gathering shadow
6
In a network of lines that enlace
7
In a network of lines that intersect
8
On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon
9
Around an empty grave
10
What story down there awaits its end?