Heathland by Denny Bradbury
13 Wednesday Apr 2011
Posted in Poetry
Tag Archives: Thomas Hardy
A look at Thomas Hardy
10 Sunday Apr 2011
Posted in Fiction, Literacy News, Poetry
Tags
Denny Bradbury, Dorset, Hardy, Poetry, Thomas, Thomas Hardy, Victorian
Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset in 1840, and despite not starting school until he was eight years old due to frail health, lived a long and highly creative life until his death aged 87 in 1928.
From an early career as an architect’s assistant, his writings, and in particular his poetry, became the chief focus of his working life. Both were mediums through which he explored his obsession with the darker side of life – passion, emotions, family, poverty and social disapproval, combined with an idealisation of rural life.
A prolific writer, he challenged many of the sexual and religious conventions of the Victorian Age through prose and poetry, depicting class, romance, and the magical that can exist within the minutiae of life whilst also exploring the tragic & self-destructive fates of his characters. Denny Bradbury’s poems within her collection Denagerie of Poems, inspired by Hardy, draw upon the discovery of hope within the darker side of life.
Although the first poems Hardy submitted were rejected by several magazines and his first three novels all sold badly, success arrived with the serialisation of Far From The Madding Crowd in 1874 and whilst 2011 celebrates the 120th anniversary of the publication of one of Hardy’s most
renowned novels, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, his next work, Jude The Obscure, thrust him into a whirl of controversy.
Despite selling over 20,000 copies in three months, reviews declaring it to be an attack upon the institution of marriage meant he turned his back on writing fiction and concentrated solely on poetry, producing several collections, many of which related to his relationship with his wife of thirty
eight years, Emma.
Eight years before he died, Thomas Hardy wrote a poem entitled At Lulworth Cove a Century Back. Lulworth Cove is a small village in Dorset and is also the setting for Denny Bradbury’s new novel, The Reunion. Both writers, separated apart by centuries, are drawn to this location as a setting for telling a story – Thomas Hardy’s poem commemorates the centenary of the poet John Keats ‘brief visit to Lulworth Cove’ in 1820, who himself wrote his last ever poem there, whilst Denny Bradbury’s The Reunion tells of five friends who meet at Lulworth Cove and take a boat out to sea and into trouble.
Just as in Far From The Madding Crowd where Hardy refers to it as Lulstead Cove and Sergeant Troy drowns just outside it, Denny Bradbury’s novel tells of how the sea which is usually calm in the cove itself is not so calm beyond it.
Interview with Denny Bradbury: Poetry
08 Friday Apr 2011
Posted in Poetry
Denny Bradbury, the author of Denagerie of Poems has been speaking about the process of creating her poetry, her hero Thomas Hardy and inspirations behind what she writes…
Shakespeare Master Writer
06 Wednesday Apr 2011
Shakespeare…highly regarded in his own day and even now as one of the most prolific writers of poetry, plays, fiction and non-fiction. He was considered the Steven Spielberg of his day. You can’t argue that Shakespeare’s writing has left a lasting impression on literature in terms of plots, characterisation, language and genre.
Romance and tragedy for example wouldn’t be addressed in the same play until Romeo and Juliet. In an experimental time for theatre, he used soliloquies to explore the minds of the characters rather than just convey information about settings, situations and status.
Language as an entity wasn’t standardise in the 1500 and 1600’s, to which Shakespeare helped formalise by sticking to a few simple rules. The idea of a beginning, middle and an end came out of the proverbial soup that was Shakespeare’s brain.
Moving on to his sonnets and poems which are suspected to have been written throughout his lifetime until his death in 1616; they are said to be an insight not into his mind, but into something more meaningful to humanity…the heart. I suppose this is how poetry can differ from prose. Instead of telling a narrative, you can write or read something from a real human experience. Shakespeare influenced poets such as Thomas Hardy, William Blake and even Charles Dickens during times when they were paid by the inch of writing they produce. Thomas Hardy having influenced Denny Bradbury’s poems Heatherland and Thoughts of Love which can both be found in a collection of her works Denagerie of Poems. Like Thomas Hardy and therefore its safe to say that like Shakespeare himself, the inspiration for Denagerie of Poems is gathered from a collection of observations. The poems were written over the last few years and are offered to the reader for reflection on the world and state of mind in the 21st Century.
Denagerie of Poems gives a category of topics to look upon, Idle Thoughts Whilst Procrastinating for example looks at the idea of entertaining guests and the feelings you get before they arrive, this is personified in the obvious phrase “There is so much to entertaining, be suave or ‘act the fool?’” But with a slight humorous narrative, which gives the question what would happen if you were to accidentally burn the house down before everyone arrives.
Shakespeare, the master of irony has left his mark on the English by breathing life into words to which ironically go full circle and become sweets to the sweet and a door to the eye of the mind…(how many phrases did you spot there?).
Denny Bradbury Books 