Literature in Design

I really like when literature or history is merged directly into design, because I'm nerdy like that.  One of my closest friends, Shannon Long, has been doing jewelry-design as a side project, and the piece pictured below is inspired by her favorite poem: "Dover Beach":

Dover Beach Clip

"I love books.  I love literature.  Heck, I even love words!  Certain poems just speak to me, most of all Matthew Arnold's 'Dover Beach'.  The entire poem, especially the last stanza does a beautiful job expressing the importance of human connections, love and relationships because the world (although) can be so very cruel.  Wearing this piece allows me to carry that message with me wherever I go.  Plus, I like the look of the text on a few of the flower petals"

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Shannon and I met while in high school at when we both worked at a local library.  We are nerd-soul-mates.