I’m working on a book with an Emily Dickinson poem in it (see my first post here), and thinking about using stained glass windows like the one to the left as illustrations. A double-sided accordion, where you can see the windows from the front and the back, seems like it’s worth pursuing. But what text to put on the back of the accordion? Dickinson to the rescue… The following poem has bird imagery and the same number of stanzas and many em-dashes, so it seems like a good candidate:
“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.
My current idea is to print the window illustrations on tissue or rice paper, cut holes in the accordion and affix the tissue over the cutout. Light could then come through the “window,” and the illustration would be the same on both the front and back.