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Denny Bradbury Books

Denny Bradbury Books

Monthly Archives: January 2013

Happiness – Raymond Carver

26 Saturday Jan 2013

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beauty, line breaks, magical innocence, minimalist, short stories and poetry

Sunrise

Sunrise

Raymond Clevie Carver , 1938-1988, an American poet and writer of short stories, was a major force in the revitalisation of the American short story literature in the 1980s, towards the end of his life.

Attending a creative writing course taught by the novelist John Gardner who went on to become his mentor and a major influence on his life and career, he continued his studies in California, receiving a BA in 1963. With his first story published in 1960, his career, which he dedicated to short stories and poetry, really took off during the 1970s and 1980s.  In both his stories and poems he tended towards a concise and exact use of words, with the reason being, as he stated himself “that the story or poem can be written and read in one sitting”. This was not just a preference of his, but necessary when he was juggling a young family and teaching as well as trying to write.

Denny Bradbury, in her new collection of poems “De-versify” deploys a similar style in her poems “Winter Soul” and “My Gift To You”, in which she relays her thoughts to the reader very succinctly. In “My Gift To You”, as Carver does in his poem “Happiness”, there are no line breaks or definition of verses – it is a stream of consciousness that tells a story in its entirety:

“The discontent of winter
Lies heavy on your brow
The eyes once full of summer sun
Shine solemn, wistful now
You yearn for warmth and sunlight
You long for birds to soar
You look for buds to open
As they wake from frosty hoar
Oh! Love is summer, it is spring
But love is winter too
Be happy in the tide of life
My love, my gift to you”

Much of Carver’s subject matter in his writing often reflected his own life and his style has been described as both minimalist and one that incorporates dirty realism – writing about everyday people and their everyday lives, even if it is mundane and far from glamorous, just as Denny Bradbury does in her poem “Lothario/Lotharia” where she describes the less than romantic side to love:

“”…Now its she who rules the roost
The rich and dead give her a boost
She lives the life that’s all she can
She only wanted one good man

But that was never meant to be
Her life was set by family tree
Mother wasn’t all that bad
But then she’d never known her dad…”

In Carver’s poem “Happiness” he talks of the happiness that can be found in everyday life if it is just searched for:

“So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder…

He writes of two young boys he sees, out at the crack of dawn delivering newspapers as they need to earn money, but despite being in the adult world of needing to work there is a magical innocence about them that means they find beauty in watching the sun rise whilst the moon is still in the sky:

“..They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water…”

The moment is so brief; the boys still young but still up and about very early to do their duties that Carver is unable to adequately sum up the beauty that the stillness of the early morning and the obvious friendship and comradeship that exists between the two boys as they share the morning’s task:

.. Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.”

LadyKillers

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Denny's Diary

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My theatre going friends and I went to see the Lady Killers at Milton Keynes Theatre this week.  A snowy evening but the theatre was full which was great as the production was very good and the cast superb.  We thoroughly enjoyed the evening and I revel in some of the best of British talent that goes on the road (in all weathers) to bring a delightful few hours of escapism.  We are lucky in this country to have accessible theatre.  Also fortunate in our less accessible theatrical experiences as I went to the Royal opera House to see La Boheme, again an evening of pure magic and emotion.  Agreed it is quite expensive for a reasonable seat but worth every penny if you look upon it as a real treat and go less often. Perhaps that is something the ROH could work on (although I do realise this debate has been ongoing for years).

However back to the Lady Killers, everyone who left the theatre to go into the cold cold snow seemed to be smiling so the actors and production crew have done their work well, for which I thank them.

Denny Bradbury

Fast rode the knight – Stephen Crane

17 Thursday Jan 2013

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creatures in nature, hero, Horses of War, man's obsession, Wisdom of Trees

Fast rode the knight

Fast rode the knight

Stephen Crane, today considered one of the most innovative writers of the 1890s, in four years alone published five novels, two volumes of poetry, three short story collections, two books of war stories, and numerous works of short fiction and reporting.  Despite being only 28 years of age when he died in 1900 of haemorrhages of the lungs, he was already one of the best known writers of his generation.  His poetry, which he referred to as “lines” was not analysed by critics as much as his fiction.  His own view was that his overall aim when it came to his poems was “to give my ideas of life as a whole, so far as I know it.”

His poems, generally short in length, such as “Fast rode the knight” contain certain attitudes, beliefs, opinions and stances towards God, man and the Universe, themes that Denny Bradbury in her new book De-versify also draws on in her poems such as “Hare in the Moonlight”; “Wisdom of Trees” and “Horses of War” where she looks to the elements and creatures in nature and how we, as humans, could learn from their knowledge and wisdom:

“… Hare with her babies
Wisdom abounds…

….Hare knows the old ways
Hare knows what we lack

Hare sees all the mystery
Hare keeps it all back

We have to listen
Find ways back to the truth…”

Crane’s  “Fast rode the knight”  takes on the theme of chivalry to illustrate how the pursuit of one goal can be destructive and how mankind sometimes does not realise the price that had been paid.  He starts his poem by describing the way the knight rides the horse, spurring the animal on as he desperately chases his goal:

“Fast rode the knight
With spurs, hot and reeking,
Ever waving an eager sword,
“To save my lady!”
Fast rode the knIght,
And leaped from saddle to war….”

His poem illustrates how even when we think we are doing a good deed, man’s obsession can blur our vision and stop us from seeing that the ways we have chosen are not necessarily the best ones.  As Denny Bradbury says in her poem “Horses of War”:

“..What a debt do we owe to each lovely steed?
We offer sad thanks as they worked for man’s greed
Lessons we learned from this desperation
Should ensure that we never seek reparation.”

Similarly, in “Fast rode the knight”, Crane illustrates how people will sacrifice everything to reach the top, yet when they get there, most of them realise it was not worth it – the knight had the good intention of rescuing his lady, but in the process his horse is left bleeding and for dead, in contrast to the waving banner of the hero.  Was the horse killed by his master’s desires to rescue his lady at all costs or by the enemies the knight was defending his lady from? Does the end ever justify the means?:

“..A horse,

Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,

Forgotten at the foot at the castle wall.

A horse

Dead at the foot of the castle wall.”

Signs of life from a Buckinghamshire garden

12 Saturday Jan 2013

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We have had only a single jay up to now. Last year he was an occasional visitor but always alone. This week we were very excited to see the pair of these glorious birds flitting about the trees.  Others have also noticed that the jays have started to come in from the hedgerows.

I love the cycle of life and have faith that Nature will restore the balance if we let her.

Denny Bradbury

A Red, Red Rose – Robert Burns

08 Tuesday Jan 2013

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all seasons, Auld Lang Syne, bonnie lass, love, trditional Scottish songs

Red, Red Rose

Red, Red Rose

Traditionally entitled “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” and often published as a poem, Robert Burns’ piece is a 1774 song sung in Scots by the poet himself, based on traditional sources.  Burns’ worked for the last ten years of his life on different projects to preserve traditional Scottish songs for the future, one of the most famous being “Auld Lang Syne”, and “A Red, Red Rose” was one of these, which he then gave to the Scots singer Pietro Urbiani who published it in his book “Scots Songs”.  Like Denny Bradbury’s poem “My Gift To You” from her new collection “De-versify”, in which she talks of how love can be found through all seasons, despite the darkness of winter and the lack of sunlight:

“..Oh! Love is summer, it is spring
But love is winter too
Be happy in the tide of life
My love, my gift to you

so too does Burns refer to how his love for another is like the red rose that can be found in the summer month of June and within the most melodious of tunes:

“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune..”

Just as he talks of a love that is both fresh and long-lasting, promising he will return, regardless of the time or distance:

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

Denny Bradbury in her poem “Hold Me Gently” talks of the power of a love that leaves her bereft when her love is not beside her:

“Hold me gently
rock me deep
into the fathomless pool of a deep, deep sleep
there let me be till the sun reappears
and the heat of your love in the day
dries my tears…..
……random drops of my fears
and my loneliness
for none to see as I am alone

without you beside me.”

“A Red, Red Rose” is written in four quatrains, with the inclusion of repetition to emphasize his firm belief that he will love his lady forever and will return no matter what:

“..And fare thee well, my only Luve
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.”

Denny Bradbury, in her poem “So Grey the Sea” deploys a similar tactic, repeating her first verse as her last verse to illustrate how the writer has come full circle:

“So grey the sea
All white the foam
I journey forth
To come back home…”

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