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Denny Bradbury Books

Denny Bradbury Books

Tag Archives: literature

Hwang Jini

10 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Poetry

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Hwang Jini, literature, nature, Poetry

When sijo poetry first appeared in the late 14th century, it was regarded as many as unique to Korea, as it was originally written in Korean. As such, many early sijo poems have had to be translated.

Hwang Jini is widely regarded as one of the leading Sijo poets, and her work in the 16th century focused on love and longing.
Alas, what have I done? didn’t I know how I would yearn?
Had I but bid him stay, How could he have gone?
But stubborn, I sent him away, and now such longing learn!

A common theme in Jini’s work is wanting someone who is absent, and wishing for their return. In the poem above, Hwang Jini is clearly pining for her lost love, How could he have gone? She doesn’t feel like he could return, I sent him away, and now such longing learn. However, in the poem below, while she is pining for a lover, she believes he could return.

Oh that I might capture the essence of this deep midwinter night
And fold it softly into the waft of a spring-moon quilt,
Then fondly uncoil it the night my beloved returns.

Hwang here hopes to capture the essence of this night in the sensual poem above as she waits for her lover to return, as she folds it softly, before she’ll fondly uncoil it the night her beloved comes back.

Like Hwang, Denny’s Bradbury sijo poem also looks at love.

What I have is mine but I share with you
All the apples and grapes and oranges too
Water is the world’s song

Denny clearly gives everything she has to her beloved too. Like Hwang shares the essence of that night with her partner, Denny shares all that she has. Both women use objects to describe their love, with Denny using fruit to represent love, and Hwang using a quilt, with the obvious sexual connotations that come with using an object from the bedroom to symbolise love.

Denny’s contemporary poem, however, could also be seen as a love letter to the world. There is no particular person that this is clearly addressed to. Water is the world’s song suggests a more general love, that Denny here wants to bring across her caring nature, and her generosity and an all-giving love, compared to the Hwang’s sijo, which is referring to a more sexual love.

E-books – A popular way to read

24 Friday Jun 2011

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Literacy News, Misc

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Are e-books popular, Borvo, Denny Bradbury, ebooks, literature, reading, What are the pro's and con's of e-books, what is the future of printed books?

The popularity of e-booksAs the first self-published author to sell one million e-books is named (American writer sells a million), we explore the popularity of these paperless documents.

The concept of e-books is not a recent phenomenon.  Indeed, in 1971 Michael S. Hart launched ‘Project Gutenberg’.  Its aim was to archive works digitally and therefore allow a wider-distribution of the books.  There are now over 34,000 items digitally stored by this project.

As the decades wore on, we saw the introduction of books on CD-ROM; available as full texts online; and eventually the download era woke up to the prospect that more than music and movies might be popular.

It is not only printed books which are available as e-books.  Authors are now starting to write specifically for the e-book market, bypassing the expense of hard-print publications.

In recent articles (Bloomsbury reports big rise in e-book sales, Digital book sales increase in UK ) we have already noticed the increasing desire to buy reading material in e-book format.

With the trend of modern life to be sat in front on a computer screen; carry smartphones and keep on the move with limited baggage, it really is no wonder that more and more people are turning to electronic reading.

E-readers are continually being developed and redeveloped to ensure maximum efficiency – larger screen sizes, lighter weight, strong textual colours; anti-glare systems, water/shock/dirt-proof: promotions pushing their suitability in different situations  ‘great for holiday travel’, ‘ideal for those intense commutes’…

Many campaigns are underway to introduce children to the love of reading (Duchess of Cornwall promotes reading, New reading project to help children in London) – what better way than to mix English Literature with the technological world they love to be part of?

E-books are more and more becoming the preferred choice of ‘book’.

Yet what are the arguments against them?

For those of use who are nostalgic, we miss the bulk of the book, the feel of paper between our fingers and the ability to see and indeed feel our progress through a book – a screen informing us we have completed 37% of the book is not the same as turning individual pages.

Paper books are also a way of slowing down the pace of life, allowing us to step away from the digital world in which we now live.

We stare at screens at work, why would we then want to stare up close at another screen?

Despite the increasing popularity of electronic readers, will hard-copy books ever be replaced?  The answer, for the present, is no.

Written word has been documented over the millenia on stone, wood, paper, ceramics – and many of their writings are still legible today.  Computer technology in comparison has been around for an insignificant amount of time.

We do not know how long this current phase will last.  I, for one, will continue to use both online and hard-based means of documentation.

According to the online Oxford Dictionary a book is ‘a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers’.

For how much longer will this definition stand?

Laura Scott

Denny Bradbury’s latest novel ‘Borvo‘ will be available in both print and as an e-book.

To purchase one of Denny’s books please click on the images below or contact Denny directly at email denisebradbury@btinternet.com.
The Reunion Denagerie of Poems by Denny Bradbury

McCann scoops prestigious award

16 Thursday Jun 2011

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Literacy News

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Author, book awards, Books, Colum McCann, literature

Colum McCann has won the International Impac Dublin Literary Award.

It’s for his book Let The Great World Spin.

It scoops the world’s most lucrative literary prize worth £88,000.

The story of colliding cultures set in 1970s New York was described by judges as a “remarkable literary work”.

The World and Universe of J.R.R. Tolkien

18 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Fiction

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Epic, Fantasy, fiction, Gollum, Hobbits, J.R.R. Tolkien, literature, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Middle Earth, Mordor, Novel, The Hobbit, Tolkien, Writing

Gollum a character from Lord of the Rings

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien , Oxford professor, master of the languages and literatures of the ancient north, poet, story teller, creator of the orcs, the hobbits, the high-elves, the black riders, of Rivendell, Lothlorien and the misty mountains, creator of Mirkwood and the black land of Mordor.  Creator of the Fellowship of the Ring and the Dark Lords.  J.R.R. Tolkien is the omniscient presence behind Middle Earth.

His writings and teachings have been an inspiration to other artists.  The Hobbit, which was originally written for his children, and published over 50 years ago is now known to generations across the world.  And the Lord of the Rings has become one of the most intricate pieces of fantasy fiction of our time.  The writings of Tolkien go deeper than the pages.  In a more comprehensive look at Lord of the Rings, the attraction to readers is the belief in an unreal world.  What Tolkien called “Secondary World”.  A “Secondary World” is one that exists only in the mind, cannot be seen or found. Pure imagination.  Readers who enter the “Secondary World” or Middle Earth, probably liked where they were, but were bound by the physics of the real world.  Interesting stuff don’t you think?  The ultimate secret to Tolkien’s appeal (which is a mystery) is the quality of imagination.  For example Ents, nobody talked about Ents before Tolkien, as its not a traditional piece of literature, but today most people understand what it is.  A more obvious example would be the Hobbits.  Hobbit in terms of the word sounds like a traditional English word, but is in fact nonsense.  J.R.R. Tolkien made the whole thing up.  Very few writers can invent a notion which becomes recognised by the whole world.

It was the countryside just outside of Birmingham where Tolkien discovered his love of nature and this can be seen prominently throughout his descriptions of Middle Earth.  J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, speaking Latin he developed this into an interest into languages and teachings.  Middle Earth was a melting pot in Tolkien’s mind even as a school boy at King Edwards in Birmingham.  Ironically like a plant, this idea grew, flourished and over spilled onto pages and pages of writing.

The fantasy genre has been around since the dawn of writing itself.  Since Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey to the old English myth of Beowulf and even in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights Dream.  The genre has been evolving.  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is considered the father of modern fantasy with over 150million readers spanning generations upon generations.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is the second highest selling set of books of all time after the Bible.  And was made into a set of films which is still considered one of the most ambitious film projects of all time, having spent over $285 million to create the finished project.  It also claimed a number of academy awards that rival Ben Hur and Titanic.

World wide, the Lord of Rings raked in  $2,915,155,189 in at the Box Office.  All from one mind. The mind of Tolkien.

To purchase one of Denny’s books please click on the images below or contact Denny directly at email denisebradbury@btinternet.com.
The Reunion Denagerie of Poems by Denny Bradbury

Education Secretary’s views gets support

03 Sunday Apr 2011

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Literacy News

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Denny Bradbury, literature, Michael Gove

The Education Secretary says he is concerned and worried that British students aren’t reading enough Victorian novels.

And author Denny Bradbury agrees and supports his comments.

Michael Gove has demanded that we create a culture of reading.

The Conservative MP says classic literature risks fading out in schools as many students are allowed to complete exams without studying a single book written before the 20th century.

Less than one in 100 pupils who sat the most popular English literature exam last year based their answers on novels published prior to 1900.

Poet and also author of the work of fiction called ‘The Reunion’ and Denny Bradbury supports Michael Gove’s concerns.

She agrees with the Education Secretary’s points and says “it is important that we do create a culture of reading, one of my literary heroes is Thomas Hardy, reading his work inspired me to write’.

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