Since we’re still enjoying the effects of The lovely blue, I thought a cool dip into the river would be appropriate. River names is another double-sided elephant book, the text from Geoffrey Grigson’s wonderful Shell Country Alphabet, just reissued in a retro-ish cover – but we’ve got a battered original. The text is set to reflect both the meandering flow of the rivers and the spiralling-cyclic form of the book, torn and folded from one sheet of handmade paper – and it begins on the cover:
River names… include some of the more ancient names on the map…
The text continues on the other side:
Obvious rivery qualities have given rivers their names…
I so much enjoy the inconsequential, restrained poetry of this text. The sheet of paper, torn and folded, looks like this:
There are lots more One Elephant books in Bookworks, and in previous Work in focus posts (Shelley’s Cloud, Bank Holiday weekend clouds) – and there will be more to come soon. For information on any work, leave me a note in the comment box below, or click on contact details.
Leave a Reply