Tuesday 17 January 2017

Literature for you ears




My book earrings are real mini books, with readable text (mostly poetry) inside. I get a lot on questions about the range of book earrings I make. This page has a few of the answers, but do get in contact if you have more questions, or would like to purchase some.

These earrings are my own design, the covers are my own marbling, and I also hand stitch the books in a simple book binding. 


Covers
Because the covers are hand marbled the range of colours I have available is constantly changing but I do always have a wide range of colours available - just ask for details, or tell me a few colours and I'll let you know what I have on hand! I also am happy to make custom colours, but do allow a month to get the marbling done.  

Text
I can make custom poems, but like the custom marbling, it does add a bit of time (normally a week). Below is a list of poems I have ready to make. Ordering from this list with an already marbled cover means your order will take no more than 10 working days to complete. If you want a pair in a hurry I do have a range made up already for immediate postage.



Shakespeare Sonnets 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 56, 104, 105, 116, 129, 130
Emily Dickenson - Hope is the Thing with Feathers
Lewis Carroll - The Jabberwocky
Rudyard Kipling - The Thousandth Man
Song of Solomon 4:1-7
William Ernest Henley - Invictus
Catullus - Viviamus mea Lesbia
Robert Frost - The Road not Taken






Full text of a few of the poems I use (I haven't listed them all here):


Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


The Jabberwocky  ~ Lewis Carroll
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
  Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
  He chortled in his joy.

Whakatauaki



Whaia te iti kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe he maunga teitei

Pursue that which you cherish the most and if you bow your head let it be to a lofty mountain



Ka whangaia, ka tupu, ka puawai

That which is nurtured grows, then blossoms.

I make this book just with the te reo (without the english translation), if you would prefer the english translation to be present also please let me know when you order.


Shakespeare ~ Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee




Emily Dickenson

'Hope' is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.



Shakespeare ~ Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.


Catullus ~ Vivamus mea Lesbia

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum seueriorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let us Live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
And pay no mind to all
The gossiping of old men.
Suns can set and rise again:
When our brief light goes out,
We will sleep one perpetual night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Then another thousand, then a second hundred.
Yet another thousand, another hundred.
When we’ve shared many thousands,
Let us scramble the count, we won’t know it,
Nor can anyone wish evil upon us
Knowing all the kisses we share. 
Translation ©Meg Prebble 2014



Shakespeare ~ Sonnet 17

Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet Heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say, 'This poet lies,
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers yellow'd with their age,
Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
   But were some child of yours alive that time,
   You should live twice,-- in it and in my rhyme.




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