Category Archives: Poetry

Julian of Norwich

10 Thursday Oct 2013

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It came to me out of the blue.  I was idly wandering through the fields when I felt that I had to write about Julian of Norwich.  Her writing has long been both an inspiration and a puzzle to me. Her commitment and her intellect are both dazzling.  This is by way of an entreaty to understand.

The Call

Mother Julian! Mother Julian!

I don’t know your name, the one that your mother would call

As you wandered away from your home in the grip of your holy enthral

As you sat looking out at the blue

of the sky be it daytime or night were you always convinced of your goal

did you instinctively know what is right, was yours always a pure childish soul?

Did God’s voice on the wind or the tide

gently slide in with delight and rock you with thoughts so divine

you said, “Now I’m for an Anchorite I know the course that is mine”.

Was it simple for you, did you doubt

were you ever tempted to sin? When children bullied and fought

were you there on the edge looking in, thinking violence will all come to nought?

I hope that you gave up some gritty

childhood pleasures and joys that you threw sticks and muddied the water

and you cried over old broken toys, wishing to stay evermore as a daughter

freezing time that was precious and good

but then you discovered your Father in churches so simple and plain

that you walked away from your family a much greater one for to gain.

How proud and how sad was your mother

when you donned the linen pure, that mark of your face in her memory

full of light and conviction so sure, Holy work the one truth in your story

Do I envy you the faith that was riven

so deep in your brilliant mind? Shall I ever be even so true

to a tenth of what you left behind? Only God knows, but maybe I do!

Denny Bradbury©2013

Cobwebs/Gossamer

24 Tuesday Sep 2013

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We are all so aware of the terrible troubles afflicting the world at the moment, but hasn’t it always been so?  Until humankind stops wanting what others have to boost their ego and until poets and peace-loving people take over we will continue down this awful path of fear and mayhem.

Walking with my faithful dog this morning I saw once more the beauty in the autumnal spiders’ webs caught on gates and among the tall grasses that my faith in nature was restored.

Gossamer tablecloth covering green, tiny creatures never to be seen. Gassamer threads weaving over all, holding early dew in autumn’s thrall.

This is the first verse of a poem I wrote last autumn which view filled me so with wonder at the infinite variety of our world, awesome beauty in the tiniest of places.

Let’s give the poets a chance!

A peaceful day to you all – Denny Bradbury

Emily Dickinson

17 Monday Dec 2012

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Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was a 19th century American poet.

She once defined poetry “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?” (Letter342a, 1870)
The Letters of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson and Theodora Ward (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1958).

Emily was born on December 10th 1830 to a prominent family in Amherst, Massachusetts with a brother Austin and sister Lavinia.  Their lineage can be traced back to the Puritan Great Migration two hundred years earlier who travelled to the New World from Europe.

Emily was considered to be a very able student studying the classics.  However the subject of death seemed to haunt her throughout the years:  the death of her second cousin Sophia Holland early in her life appeared to have had a deep impact on Emily.

Leonard Humphrey was a principal at her college who assisted in her thirst for literary knowledge and was thought to be more than a mere acquaintance who passed away at the age of 25.

Emily cared for her mother who, after suffering from a slowly deteriorating illness, died shortly after the passing of her father.

The death of her dog after so many years of companionship, and her favourite niece just three years before her own passing showed a constant stream of sadness.

There is also a thought she struggled with religion – brought up under the acceptance of God but to later turn away from the routine communal worship to that of her own private contemplation; preferring also to dress in white rather than the traditional dark colours.

By 1860 Emily was effectively a recluse.  Yet it was this seclusion that allowed Emily the opportunity to enjoy her reading and refine her own literary works.

She wrote thousands of poems yet fewer than a dozen were published during her lifetime.  Those pieces which were printed were often ‘edited’ to suit the tone and traditions of the age.

It was not until after her death in 1886 when Emily’s younger sister, Lavinia, came across all her works.

“There Is Another Sky”
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields –
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

There are many interpretations to this poem – some say it highlights her sexual desire for her brother, Austin – he had married Susan Gilbert, also perceived to be an unrequited love of Emily’s.

Others suggest the poem is her hope that Austin will see her through to a better place in heaven.  Or simply with all the death and sadness she faced, her brother was always there for her.  It is perhaps a message of hope.

Emily Dickinson died on May 15th 1886.

Ode.

19 Monday Nov 2012

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Greek OdeAn ode is a form of lyrical poetry, carefully structured, that praises or glorifies an event or a person.  Odes can also be found to describe nature intellectually as well as emotionally, just as Denny Bradbury does, in her poem “Wisdom of Trees” from her soon to be published new collection “De-versify” where she draws reference to the First World War and talks of how the trees know that mankind will go on fighting from “righteous outrage” rather than learning from the past and walking “..in peaceful union” whilst the trees

“..will reach their searching branches
Up into the wind and rain
They live and die as nature dances
Next year they grow and live again.”

Odes are about celebration and reverence and were originally accompanied by music and dance with instruments such as the aulos and the lyre.  They were performed in public with a Chorus during ancient Greek times and were often composed to celebrate athletic victories.  Whilst modern odes are not written to be performed in such a way, their aim is still to describe or report a situation or individual using celebratory language and grand metaphors.

A classic ode was structured in three major parts – the strophe, the antistrophe and the epode – with three typical forms of odes: the Pindaric, of which William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley were all known to follow; the Horatian and the Irregular.

Whereas the Pindaric ode follows the three part form, the English ode,  who’s most common rhyming scheme is ABABCDECDE, of which Horace was the initial model, consists of a two or four line stanza, written in praise of, or dedicated to, someone or something that capture’s the poet’s interest as can be seen in Denny Bradbury’s poem “Broken in Time” where she talks of how the sea “reclaims its own, Pulling earth to drown..”

Some of the most famous historical odes describe traditionally romantic things and ideals, often written for a certain occasion or on a particular subject such as Keats’ “Ode to Autumn”  where he talks of how

“.. full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly barn,
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

Whilst in “Ode On a Grecian Urn” he describes the timelessness of art.

An ode is usually more serious and dignified than other forms of poetry, and just as Denny Bradbury does in a number of her poems from her new collection “De-versify”, Shelley, in his “Ode to the West Wind” addresses the west wind as a powerful force and asks it to scatter the his words throughout the world.

“O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts, from an encounter fleeing,

…O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

Lest We Forget…

11 Sunday Nov 2012

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Earlier today people up and down the country as well as various locations around the world bowed their heads in respect.  We remember….

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month: 1918 the Great War was over.  Now the date and time is used to reflect on fallen comrades, those soldiers serving today, and the sacrifice which many have had to make and are still making today.

It is important to remember the past.  Many voices from the Great War still speak to us today through the written word.  Poetry enabled soldiers to express themselves.  People far from the trenches gained a small insight into the lives of service personnel.

The detail, the emotion is at times harrowing.  Poetry, more than any other form of literature, can stir up so many different feelings.

Sometimes poetry can be factual:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
(Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum est)

Other times it gives us an insight into the mental attitudes of serving soldiers:

This is no case of petty right or wrong
That politicians or philosophers
Can judge.  I hate not Germans, nor grow hot
With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.
(Edward Thomas, This Is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong)

When reading First World War poetry, you can find a common idea – we do not hate those we fight but we do love our country.  That in itself is the reason we go to war:

But with the best and meanest Englishmen
I am one in crying, God save England, lest
We lose what never slaves and cattle blessed.
The ages made her that made us from dust:
She is all we know and live by, and we trust
She is good and must endure, loving her so:
And as we love ourselves we hate her foe.
(Edward Thomas, This Is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong)

Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.
(A E Housman, Here Dead We Lie)

And yet others convey the simplicity of reality – we live, we fight, we die, we return back to the earth:

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
(John McCrae, In Flanders Field)

We have not explored the horrors of war or gone into any great detail of the poetry: this is a very personal era of poetry and one which should be left to the individual to explore.

What we should acknowledge is the impact that poetry can have.

Never forget the sacrifices; never forget the individuals; never forget.