Silence is rare in Nature.When we really listen, Nature is conducting symphonies of sound as her world goes about the day and night. Her invisible heartbeat is everywhere, for everyone.Our eyes are constantly bathed in the wonder of her ways, the soft drizzle of rain from soft grey clouds, the bleached harsh desert sand of a noon day, a wave caressing the shore, to the ravenous colours of a departing sunset. Indeed, whenever we look and listen to the vastness of our world Nature's beauty is always there for us. She placates our anger, soothes our pain. Her vistas feed our hearts and souls; the world of a single flower brings a smile.In these 60 minutes nature takes us through her world of wonder.
For much of history women have been seen rather than heard. Their thoughts, their views have lain too long in the shadows of our culture. Whilst this traditional view has some merit it is not entirely accurate.Here, gathered together in these volumes, we can, through their words, experience their lives; we can hear their voices, their thoughts, joys, loves and losses.For the Female Poet there was always the confining hand of men to instruct that their time was perhaps spent more productively elsewhere. These lines, these gilded verses often protest otherwise.The contribution of women in these earlier centuries is immense and in this series we bring together poets who have created some of the most beautiful and expressive verses ever written. And remember these words, these telling lines, have been written against the grain of society's male bias. With their remembered words these female poets have given us a history that we can all now share.This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialized imprint from Deadtree Publishing. Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.
On first thought an Ode should be simple to describe, to define. A definition would most probably put it as; a lyric poem, usually addressed to a particular subject, with lines of varying lengths and complex rhythm. And within that, of course, we have its depth, beauty and poetic form. It's evolvement over time and through the minds of our revered poets continues so perhaps the best description would be the Odes themselves.
The gentler sex or the deadlier of the species. Between these two definitions of the female gender lies a collection of some of the most beautiful verse ever written. For much of history women have been seen rather than heard. In this volume poets of great depth and feeling express themselves on a range of topics and in ways that perhaps only a woman can. Here in Volume 5 we bring you works from Christina Georgina Rossetti to Elinor Wylie by way of Charlotte Smith, Sara Teasdale, Katharine Tynan, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Dorothy Wordsworth and many others. Our readers include Ghizela Rowe and Nigel Planer.
Charlotte Turner Smith was born on 4th May 1749 in London. Her early years were dominated by her mother's early death and her father's reckless spending. At age 15 she married Benjamin Smith in order to rid her father of his gambling debts. Charlotte was later to write that she now become a "legal prostitute". Benjamin was violent, unfaithful, more reckless with monies than her father and completely unsupportive with her writing that she had begun to spend more time on. In 1766, Charlotte and Benjamin had the first of their twelve children. She helped with her Father in law's business and upon his death he left much to Charlotte and her children but this inheritance was tied up in legal wranglings that lasted for 40 years and became the inspiration for Dickens' central case in Bleak House. Her husband's spending landed him in prison and as was allowed at the time, Charlotte moved in to join him. It was here in 1784, that she wrote and published her first work, Elegiac Sonnets. It was an instant success, allowing Charlotte to pay for their release from prison and contributing to a revival of the sonnet. Charlotte moved to Chichester where she began to write novels believing she could earn more from their sale and rather unusually publishing all her work under her own name. Her first novel, Emmeline in 1788, was a success and in the next decade she wrote nine more. However, despite their initial success, her finances were a constant source of concern and she was often in debt being forced to move home frequently and impacting on declining health. By 1803, Smith was again poverty-stricken with severe gout which made writing painful and later almost paralysed her. On 23 February 1806, Charlotte finally received some of the inheritance, but was too ill to do anything with it and died on October 28th 1806. William Wordsworth described her as a poet "to whom English verse is under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered".
