Nature loosens her limbs, increases her ambition. Summer's work is intense with colour, she paints with a brighter light. The hours of night diminish, quickly shrink. She has no need for rest but a yearning to work. Vibrant swathes of shooting, pulsing colour almost overwhelm. Her tempo is beyond our awed imagination. Inspired, the air, the sea, the parching earth bring elemental strength. Summer storms, forest fires. The endless blue of sky, of ocean water will not still her work. Mistress of all. Our poets merely the inky pens of her will.In fifty poems we take you on their inspiring journey, reflecting on the miracle of summer.
Keats. The name is synonymous with great romantic poetry and great romantic poets. A short life but a legacy of works that few, if any, can rival.And of course his end was to be tragically romantic. Keats was returning one night to his home in Hampstead when he coughed. He coughed a single drop of blue blood upon his hand and said 'I know the colour of that blood, it is arterial blood, it is my death warrant, I must die'.And so it was that tuberculosis took its slow, devastating hold. He moved to Rome hoping the warmer climate would help but died, at age 25, in the Eternal City in 1821.His death robbed the world of its young and beautifully talented wordsmith. Such was the esteem among his fellow poets that so many wrote of the joy of his works and the grief of his death.This is their tribute.
In England summer evenings remind us of the falling of the light, of village greens and the thump of willow on leather. In winter, evenings are dark, unlit and a time to be inside.The evening light, of twilight, of sunset, has another name in the movie business. They call it 'magic hour' and sometimes it is just that. The heavy, golden light suffuses everything with a glow and fullness that gladdens our hearts and delights our eyes.For our poets this was a time of mystery and wonder; between the bright day and the canopy of stars that heralded sleep. 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.
Febuary - the second month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, brings not only the shortest month but for lovers everywhere, Valentine's day.
On this and other themes our poets including Hopkins, Nesbit, Teasdale, Coleridge and Dickinson have much to say. Among our readers are Richard Mitchley and Ghizela Rowe. The tracks are; February - An Introduction; Lines On Observing a Blossom On The First of February 1796 By Samuel Taylor Coleridge; On The Death Of Ms Burnite who Died February 2nd 1878 By David John Scott; February 3rd 1830 By Henry Alford; February Morning By Robert Laurence Binyon; Afternoon In February By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Verses Written In February 1824 By Joanna Baillie; A Calendar Of Sonnets By Helen Hunt Jackson; In February By Alice Meynell; February 10th 1840 By Henry Alford; Hymn Written Sunday February 11th, 1798 By Robert Anderson; February By Edith Nesbit; Nature of Love By Rabindranath Tagore; February Twilight by Sara Teasdale; A Valentines Song By Robert Louis Stevenson ; The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships By Christopher Marlowe; The Kiss By Dante Gabriel Rossetti; In The Safety Of Your Mouth By Daniel Sheehan; How Like A Winter Hath My Absence Been (Sonnet 97) By William Shakespeare; Winter By Anne Bradstreet; To Sappho By Robert Herrick; February By Sara Teasdale; I Who All The Winter Through By Robert Louis Stevenson; Winters Naked Wood By Daniel Sheehan; February By Arthur Christopher Benson; February By Dollie Radford; For The Anniversary Of John Keats Death By Sara Teasdale; Lines Written In Early Spring By William Wordsworth; At Castle Wood By Emily Bronte; February By Louisa Sarah Bevington; Anne Bronte - In Memory Of A Happy Day In February; To Susanna, February 1824 By Eliza Acton.
November - The eleventh month of the year in the Gregorian calendar; the land becomes bleaker, harsher but no less beautiful for that.
For our poets, including Hood, Arnold, Melville, Alford and Hardy there is much to write and comment on. Among our readers are Richard Mitchley and Ghizela Rowe. The tracks are; November - An Introduction; A November Note By Alfred Austin; The Going Of The Battery (Wives Lament November 2nd 1899) By Thomas Hardy; November Findings, November 1862 By Janet Hamilton; Duponts Round Fight (November 1861) By Herman Melville; November By John Keble; In November By Archibald Lampman; In November (2) By Archibald Lampman; November Days In Ireland By Alice Guerin Crist; In November By Phillip Henry Savage; November By John Clare; November 1806 By William Wordsworth; November 1813 By William Wordsworth; A Calendar Of Sonnets - November By Helen Hunt Jackson; November 1847 By Henry Alford; Rugby Chapel, November 1857 By Matthew Arnold; November By Thomas Hood; A Thought On Death, November 1814 By Anna Laetitia Barbauld; On The Death Of Princess Borghese, At Rome, November 1840 By Richard Monckton Milnes Houghton; November By William Cullen Bryant; November Song By Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe; November By Amy Lowell; To A Robin In November By William Wilfred Campbell; November Blind By Phillip Henry Savage; A November Night By Sara Teasdale; November By John Payne; At Day Close In November By Thomas Hardy.
Sara Trevor Teasdale was born on 8th August, 1884 in St Louis, Missouri. A child of poor health she was 14 years old when she was well enough to begin school. Her first poetry publication was in 1907 with her second book in 1911. She was courted by Vachel Lindsay, a great poet but one who thought he could not provide a suitable standard of living so Sara married Ernst Filsinger and the couple moved to New York City. In 1917 she released the poetry collection Love Songs and the following year it won three awards: the Columbia University Poetry Society prize, the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America. By 1929 Sara was deeply unhappy and divorced but remained in New York where she soon resumed her friendship with Vachel Lindsay, who was by this time married with children. In 1931 Vachel Lindsay committed suicide. Two years later Sara too was dead - overdosing on sleeping pills. She is buried in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.
Sara Teasdale - winner of a Pulitzer Prize, the Poetry Society of America prize, and other awards - lived for love and beauty and died by her own hand. Her poetry shows vividly what an intensely passionate woman she was, so much so that in some of her poetry she speaks of the impact of beauty in terms of physical pain, and the impact of love in terms of birth and death. She knew the world of her time; her poetry reacts to New York, to Chicago, to Paris; she knew the poets of her time, including a long and painful relationship with the poet Vachel Lindsay. Her poetry shows no interest in politics; it is the world of beauty and the world of the heart that draw her mind.
Her poetry is technically simple, as is that of another great American poet, Robert Frost. Like him, she expresses herself directly, yet in rhythm and rhyme:
I have loved much and been loved deeply -
Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,
Leave me the darkness and the stillness
I shall be tired and glad to go.
Like many of America's women poets, she is rather on the back shelf these days, but she deserves better. Enjoy this reading of her poetry!
A Freshwater Seas production.
Sara Teasdale - the winner of one of the earliest Pulitzer Prizes for poetry, winner of the Poetry Society of America prize, and other honors - believed passionately in the power and beauty of love, yet in her own life, love was not enough; she died by her own hand after a long illness. The man she may have loved more than any other, the poet Vachel Lindsay, killed himself two years earlier.
Her poetry ranges a full gamut from utter joy to deep loneliness. She expresses herself with utter simplicity: "Slowly over the earth/ The wings of night are falling/ My heart like the bird in the tree/ Is calling... calling... calling...." She can be wonderfully playful, telling a thrush to go call her lover: "When he harkens what you say/ Bid him, lest he miss me/ Leave his work or leave his play/ And kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!" Her soul valued beauty and love above all else: "Oh, let me love with all my strength/Careless if I am loved again."
Like many of America's women poets, she is rather on the back shelf these days, but she deserves better. Enjoy this reading of her poetry!
A Freshwater Seas production.
War may be rationalized as 'diplomacy by other means' but the reality is that when tribes, Nations and peoples bring themselves into armed conflict with one another mayhem, terror and slaughter are the result.In the First World War, The Great War, The War to End all Wars any idealistic aims that it was a 'just cause' and would be all over in a few months were shattered against the vast scale of millions dead or wounded all for the often temporary gains of a few miles of shell-pocked mud. Human bodies were of little more value than the bullets and shells which mowed them down.In this series of poetry volumes we look at the first world war from several viewpoints. From poets who died, often in battle, during its torturous years, to the women who write of war and its consequences as well as an anthology of those poets, some still of fame, and some now forgotten with only their words to bear witness for what they have experienced. Each has an individual point of view that bears its own truth.Whilst in modern times women fight and serve in many armed forces a century ago their work was needed to tend and comfort the sick and wounded from battle and help Nations, depleted of their menfolk, work as best they could.Within this vast landscape of pain and valour these women also put pen to paper to produce words that show us war from another angle. Their own. Whether it be jingoistic or patriotic, reflective or overwhelming their verses have an eloquence that is both painful and tender.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.
