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Denny Bradbury Books

Denny Bradbury Books

Tag Archives: Robert Frost

Robert Frost and Edward Thomas and Me

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Denny's Diary, Poetry

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Edward Thomas, Robert Frost, Words by Edward Thomas

Thanks to Robert Frost for encouraging Edward Thomas to write poetry. His active insistence led to some beautiful and thought provoking verse. In one of his more lighthearted moments he penned – Words. The following is from the end of that poem. Rather freeing:

From Words by Edward Thomas

Make me content
With some sweetness
From Wales
Whose nightingales
Have no wings,-
From Wiltshire and Kent
And Herefordshire,
And the villages there,-
From the names, and the things
No less.

Let me sometimes dance
With you,
Or climb
Or stand perchance
In ecstasy,
Fixed and free
In a rhyme,
As poets do.

Thank you Edward and Robert

Best wishes -Denny Bradbury

Me and Robert Frost

28 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Denny's Diary, Poetry

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Introspection at the seaside, Neither Out Far Nor In Deep, Robert Frost, Sea Poems

Whilst sitting overlooking the sea at Lyme Regis (one of the best places on England’s south coast) I composed some verses.  They will form part of a larger work all based on sea experiences. Returning home I picked up this poem by Robert Frost – to me one of the most insightful of poets. It all goes to show there are few new ideas in the world just different ways of expressing them. Although I am not sure he felt about the sea as I do!

Neither Out Far Nor In Deep – Robert Frost

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But whatever the truth may be-
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep.

Introspection at the Seaside – Denny Bradbury

Two ladies of advancing years
stopped to say ‘hello’
pass the time and talk of things
they knew of long ago.

The sea was calm, the sun was out
but t’was January cold
then they tottered on their way
somehow not so old.

I sat staring out to sea
bounded by the distant cliff
when a blackbird sang to me
his company too brief.

Thanking him I went to sit
beside the winter shore,
I thought on sea and sky and wind
introspection at my core.

Best wishes – Denny Bradbury

Poems Inspired by the Sea

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Denny's Diary, Poetry

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Robert Frost, Sea Poetry

A recent gift of a poetry book full of sea inspired poems has quickly become a favourite. Many of my own poems come to me while I sit on the wind blown southern shore of Dorset. This collection has many fine poems, one that particularly stands out is from the brilliant Robert frost. The more I read it the more I see into it.

Neither Out Far Nor In deep

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But whatever the truth may be –
The water comes ashore,
And people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?
Robert Frost

Very best wishes – Denny Bradbury

A Prayer In Spring by Robert Frost

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Misc

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De-versify, Dorset countryside, harvest, Robert Frost, rural life

Spring

Spring

“Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.”

Robert Frost, an American poet (1874-1963) is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life. His poems frequently used settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, just as Denny Bradbury does in her new collection ‘De-versify’ where she draws often on her love for the Dorset countryside such as in her poems “Waiting for Blossom”, “Lost Meadows” and “Kingcup and Friends” where she talks about the beauty of nature, often potentially threatened by the intrusion of man:

“… .. We all have been guilty by absence, design or merely a shake of
The head in resigned
Acceptance of what the men in dark suits were planning to plant next to
burgeoning shoots
Be it wind farm or pylon or merely a road we sighed and we tutted
but never did goad
Now as we look with fresh eyes do we see the reinstatement of the humble and
wonderful bee.”

‘ Lost Meadows.’

Like Denny, Robert Frost often drew on the rural life he wrote about to examine complex social and philosophical themes. Frost was one of the most popular and critically respected American poets of his generation and was honoured frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer prizes for poetry.

His poem “A Prayer In Spring” begins illustrating to the reader a reminder that the present contains a bounty of wonderful gifts, regardless of what the harvest itself may bring. That it is a time of rebirth and fertility and that we should hold onto the here and now for as long as possible.

Denny Bradbury tells of something similar in the last verses of both her poems “Kingcup and Friends” and “Gossamer Green” where she talks of Nature’s cycle:

“…Meadowsweet silver birch chestnuts red
Lavender provender hops for your bed
Room for all there’s room for more
Love and leave
Glory
Nature will restore!”   ~ ‘Kingcup and Friends’

“…Gossamer napkins scattered and left
Summer no longer leaving bereft
All those who revel in warmth of the sun
Dying for living the cycle is spun.” ~ Gossamer Green

“A Prayer In Spring” goes on to illustrate numerous other aspects of beauty that can be found in nature – a field of white flowers, the bees buzzing about the daily tasks in an orderly fashion, and the “perfect trees” that exist in this idyllic setting. Even the bird, appearing unexpectedly and heading straight for the blossom does not disturb the peaceful scene but adds to it.

Through his poem, Frost uses the metaphors of different creatures within the beauty of nature to illustrate the love of God – his message is twofold, celebrating the perfect universe and showing that we too can reach God through the tools he gives us in life.

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