The World's Wife - 2012
How Doth The Little Busy Bee - 2015
Isaac Watts 17 July 1674 – 25 November 1748) was an English Christian hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymn writer, his work was part of evangelization. He was recognized as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns. Many of his hymns remain in use today and have been translated into numerous languages.
HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE
by Issac Watts
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.
HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE by Issac Watts (1664-1748)
Graphite & Rust on paper
SOLD
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All images copyrighted © 2022 Patricia Rozental
Patricia Rozental
Anne Hathaway
by Carol Ann Duffy from The World's Wife
'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed ...'
(from Shakespeare's will)
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -
I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
I dreamed he'd written me | Etching & Chine Colle on paper | 30x20cm
prints available
As part of World Book Night last 2011, artists and makers were invited to create work inspired by Carol Ann Duffy's poetry anthology, "The World's Wife" - poems based on history, myth & fairy tale retelling the tales from the female perspective - both humorous and irreverant.
The Nuthatch - 2014
NUTHATCH by John Clare
In summer showers a skreeking noise is heard
Deep in the woods of some uncommon bird
It makes a loud and long and loud continued noise
And often stops the speed of men and boys
They think somebody mocks and goes along
And never thinks the nuthatch makes the song
Who always comes along the summer guest
The birdnest hunters never found the nest
The schoolboy hears the noise from day to day
And stoops among the thorns to find a way
And starts the jay bird from the bushes green
He looks and sees a nest he’s never seen
And takes the spotted eggs with many joys
And thinks he found the bird that made the noise
John Clare (1793 – 1864) of England was known in his day as the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet, both for his provincial turns of phrase and honest love of nature and agrarian life. Clare knew his birds well, celebrating the species of the English countryside in verse after verse.
Nuthatch | Etching | 10x14cm
prints available
To coincide with World Book Night, an exciting exhibition of selected work inspired by poetry in a wide range of mediums and styles.