Some last minute magic happened last night and I finished my #areyoubookenough project in time. The November theme was ‘Translation’ and this time the theme was something I wanted to take very literally since I work with text all the time as a poet. My poems are usually very long and fragmented, so I chose to work with the one new text I have that is neither, and is in a quite different style all in all. The poem is a love poem for a painted lady who shall remain unnamed - we have a significant age difference of some 100+ years, and she’s accustomed to a far more luxurious lifestyle than I, but we’ll try and make it work…

Translating this poem was a strange experience, especially since I can’t even say the Finnish version of the poem is finished - the text lives and is free to change at least until it finds its way into print. So, you only get to see the translation, as the original is still holding on to its right to turn into something entirely different. Not the way translations usually work, I know!

The book plays on a structure of joined accordions, and it’s housed in a modified vintage compact case.

case: 6x9x0,9cm / 2.4”x3.5”x0.4”

book: 6,7x4,3cm / 2.6”x1.7”

You can view a video of this book here.