Gifts for Brontë Aficionados — bardessdmdenton – author- artist

The holidays aren’t too far off. And there are gift giving opportunities all year long. Here are some ideas created from the artwork of Without the Veil Between – note cards and prints, mouse pads and coasters – for any Brontë aficionados in your midst!

Looking for a holiday (or birthday or other occasion gift) for a Brontë aficionado? Available to order, created from the front and back cover and interior illustrations of Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine & Subtle Spirit. Note Cards – 5.5″ x 4″ Folded – Premium matte, blank inside, with envelopes, in packs […]

Find out more via Gifts for Brontë Aficionados — bardessdmdenton – author- artist

 

 

And don’t forget, Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit, and all my publications are ready for giving in Paperback or for Kindle devices and app. (A House Near Luccoli and To A Strange Somewhere Fled are in audio book format, too.)

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Sunday Short: Thought here, smiles there; perfection lies betwixt

I just had to share this charming little poem by Christina Rossetti, which I came across in my research for my novel about the Victorian poetess. It was written, when Christina was about fourteen, for Elizabeth Read who was one of the girls her older sister Maria was governess to. Christina met “Bessie” when she went to visit her sister while the Reads of Finsbury Pavement, Islington, London were summering in the country. Although Bessie was a couple of years younger, she and Christina became fast friends.

This friendship came at a particularly lonely and gloomy time—the tunneling years—for the adolescent Christina, as she was mostly isolated at home in London with her ailing, nearly sightless, cantankerous father Gabrielle Rossetti (once a vibrant, charming, cheerful man). While her oldest brother Dante Gabriel pursued his art studies, her mother, sister, and brother William were forced to go out to work to make up for the severe drop in income the family experienced when its patriarch became sick.

The poem was written to accompany a package of stamps (one hundred humble servants … their livery of red and black) Christina had saved for Bessie’s collection.

It immediately warmed my heart with its simple, gentle, clever expression of affection and support of one young woman for another, especially when both may well have needed it most. You need to look beyond that dreary house, and Bessie can only benefit from acquaintance with you—I have Maria write to Christina in my novel.

The pure, generous, uncomplicated expression of friendship Christina gave to another girl made me think how the bonds between women come early. They are not always preserved, too often interrupted and put aside, but, hopefully, are eventually valued again.

With the past and present in mind, I say: “They should be. They must be!”

To My Friend Elizabeth
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Sweetest Elizabeth, accept I pray
These lowly stamps I send in homage true;
One hundred humble servants in their way
Are not to be despised, though poor to view.
Their livery of red and black, nor gay,
Nor sober all, is typical of you,
In whom are gravity and gladness mixed.
Thought here, smiles there; perfection lies betwixt.

 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti – detail of the Bower Meadow

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Guest Post: Song of Paper by Cynthia Jobin

Today I am pleased to host Deborah Bennison regarding the latest publication from her independent press. This volume was truly a labor of love, exhibiting the excellence of content and presentation always representative of Bennison Books.

 

Readers of Diane’s blog may already be familiar with the New England poet Cynthia Jobin, whose blog attracted many followers worldwide. Admirers of her work will be delighted to learn that a collection of her poetry, Song of Paper, has just been published by Bennison Books.

 

Amazon.com (https://amzn.to/2A8Pq3d)

Amazon UK (https://amzn.to/2NFTF9M)

 

With a fine intelligence and shining poetic sensibility, Cynthia documents the joys and griefs that mark the common humanity of our everyday lives. She explores the inexplicable exhilaration and longing that love brings and courageously delineates the crushing desolation she felt at losing her lifelong partner.

The magnificent sequence of poems which close the collection trace the journey towards her own impending death and the deeply moving acceptance with which she finally faced it.

 

Excerpt from the introduction

Shortly before her death in late 2016, Cynthia entrusted her poetic legacy to the UK poet John Looker who had long admired her work. The following is an excerpt from John’s introduction to Song of Paper:

Cynthia Jobin’s poetry is skillfully crafted and both erudite and accessible. She wrote about the mysteries of life, her grief following the death of her partner of 43 years, love and friendship, the joy of pets and the landscape of New England. She also translated French poetry. There was a depth of feeling and an unobtrusive intellect at work, but equally a lightness of touch and humour. The poems in this collection show that variety of theme and equally her range of tone; she would write just for fun as well as with serious intent.

When reading a new poem from Cynthia Jobin I have always had that comfortable feeling of being in good hands: we know that the verses are going to be impeccably crafted but we can’t predict what path they will take.

I am sure that new readers and old friends alike will discover this for themselves on reading this collection. The title, Song of Paper, comes from the opening poem and feels so apposite. The closing poem, which was also the last she ever posted in life, and which shows humour even in the midst of wisdom and courage, is an immensely moving reflection from someone who knew herself to be very close to death.

The late Cynthia Jobin

Below are extracts from two poems included in this collection
and the full version of ‘To a Tulip’.

Extract from ‘The Palpable Obscure’:

Once a day, at least, I stop to wonder

where you are.  I do not think of

you as being here.  Except, tonight

 

a heightening of powers in the darkness

wants to break November from October

with a cold slap and a small wail in the wind.

Something more than me, something much

more sure that you abide, this night, brings

you, in ways that I can almost touch.

****

Extract from ‘Riviera Reverie’:

The boy cat, all noblesse oblige,

takes his reserved, tacitly acknowledged place.

 

Drawn to their warm, imaginary blankets

spread upon the floor, these beloved creatures

 

bring to mind the worshipful habitués

of Côte d’Azur, Côte d’Or.  As the sun reaches

 

they respond, grab on, luxuriate

and, for this brief moment, even teach.

 

Should a phone call come for any one of them

I’ll say they are away, gone to the beach.

****

To a Tulip 

You,

yellow flower

standing in a cobalt vase,

unfurling blades,

stemmed sacramental cup –

winter was hard

but now your simple grace

is green announcement:

things are looking up.

There by the window you

to sunlight are the antiphon,

beauty new as beauties past,

spring’s insistence

life should carry on.

Yet you become

most beautiful at last,

when age and death are

what you must fulfill:

come that night

you can no longer

close against the dark,

you open wide until

you are all heart,

and every petal knows

translucence as it falls.

You could be hinting

how to do it, for us all.

Copyright Cynthia Jobin estate; Bennison Books.

 

Song of Paper is available from:

Amazon.com

Amazon UK

Please check out all the excellent publications from Bennison Books!

Without The Veil Between, An Interview With DM Denton — Anne Brontë

Thank you to Brontë scholar and biographer Nick Holland for interviewing me on his blog.

Loved Nick’s questions! Please go over to annebronte.org for my answers to:
♦“You’ve become noted for your historical fiction, but what made you pick Anne Brontë for a subject?”
♦The book’s title is ‘Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit’. What was the inspiration for the title?
♦The book features your own illustrations. Did Anne Brontë’s drawing skills inspire you, as well as her writing skills?
♦Your book looks at Anne Brontë’s time at Thorp Green Hall and at her relationship with William Weightman. Do you think she loved Weightman and did he love her?
♦What is your favourite Anne Brontë poem and why?
♦What message does Anne have for people today?
♦Your book has, quite rightly, had some great reviews – do you think you’ll return to the Brontë family for future books?
♦What do you think Anne and her sisters would have thought of the worldwide fame they’ve achieved two hundred years after their births?
♦What are you working on at the moment?

 

Without The Veil Between, An Interview With DM Denton — Anne Brontë

Earlier in the week I marked World Sight Day by looking at Patrick Brontë’s sight saving operation, and the impact it had on the Brontës, but today’s post is something different – an interview with DM Denton, the American author of acclaimed novel ‘Without The Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine And Subtle Spirit’.

There have been several attempts down the years to portray members of the Brontë family in a fictional form, and it can be a dangerous undertaking as I feel you really have to have a love of the family to be able to pull it off. Thankfully, Diane Denton certainly has that…

Read entire interview
via Without The Veil Between, An Interview With DM Denton — Anne Brontë

Saturday – Sunday Shorts: Colette’s Taste for Life

“Everything that astonished me when I was young astonishes me even more today. The time will never come for me when there are no more discoveries to make. Every morning the world is as new again and I will not cease to flower except through death.”
~ Colette

With a new movie out about a writer I have long idolized, the French author and actress Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, 1873–1954, I thought I would offer some quotes from this unique, witty, courageous, sensual realist who undoubtedly had—to echo the title of a book about Colette by Yvonne Mitchell—”a taste for life”.

Colette in her dance hall days

Colette is most famous for her novella Gigi, (1944), but to fully appreciate her talent, personality, heart, and spirit, you must be adventurous and delve further into her repertoire to truly discover the delicacy, humor, and wisdom of her narrative and poetic voice, which, besides being “largely concerned with the pains and pleasures of love, [is] remarkable for [its] command of sensual description.” To quote further from the online Encyclopedia Britannica entry by Kathleen Kuiper: “Her greatest strength as a writer is an exact sensory evocation of sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and colours of her world.”

I actually got the idea for the illustration included in my kindle short The Library Next Door from this photograph of Colette as a young woman.

“It is the image in the mind that links us to our lost treasures; but it is the loss that shapes the image, gathers the flowers, weaves the garland.”
~ Colette, My Mother’s House & Sido

Illustration for Kindle Short Story: The Library Next Door

“I went to collect the few personal belongings which…I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”
~ Colette

“By associating with the cat, one only risks becoming richer.”
~ Colette

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

 

She will be the most spirited of all

As some of you may know, Christina Rossetti, Victorian poetess, sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painter and poet and founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, is the subject of my next novel WIP.

Christina Rossetti by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I relate to much about Christina, being myself of an Italian and English background, experiencing the contradictions of the combination in almost every aspect of my life, sometimes frustrated but mostly grateful for how I am affected by them. Also, because of Christina’s own childhood and adolescence, which have occupied the early days of my research and writing, I have been reminded of something my mother had heard and shared with me: that we are most ourselves at the threshold of puberty. Having lost her own mother at the age of ten, my mom knows how deeply that tragic event affected and shaped her.

If I look back to myself around that time, I do find my essence, my dreams, my goals, my core beliefs—all on the verge of what will happen to nourish or disparage them.

Christina Rossetti as a child, by William Bell Scott

Christina’s maternal grandfather, Gaetano Polidori, said of her as a child: “Avra piu spiritu di tutti” (she will be the most spirited of all).

Based on her second brother William’s reflections, I wrote this in my budding manuscript: He was looking for the little sister who was vivacious, couldn’t help opening her heart or saying what was on her mind, and was only ever upset for childish reasons. The one who filled the house with sudden impulses and notions, questions and expectations, who never thought about growing up and yet promised to be self-confident and engaging, a bright star in society when she did. 

As William realized: “… what came to pass was, of course, quite the contrary.”

Gabriel and Christina by Max Beerbohm

“Well, Christina, your heart may be like a singing bird,
but why do you dress like a pew-opener?”

Christina Rossetti, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

 

There is a gap in Christina’s story. Just before she turned 13, “towards the end of 1842”, as one of her biographers, Georgina Battiscombe writes, “darkness falls upon this attractive, open-hearted child. For years she vanishes from view, to emerge again in 1847 changed almost beyond recognition.”

There are supposed reasons for this transformation of Christina: including a change in family circumstances (that affected its optimism and finances) when her father became ill, the normal physical and psychological alterations of an adolescent female, and a religious crisis nor unlike the one Anne Brontë (the focus of my novel Without the Veil Between) had at a similar age.

There is proof that during this time Christina began to seriously develop her poetic voice and to realize writing, especially poetry, as her true calling.  By sixteen she was considered the poet of the family, even her sometimes jealous sister Maria pronouncing her so and diligently and—although she might not outright admit it—proudly copying Christina’s poetry into a journal.

Illustration for the original publication of Goblin Market by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

 

 

For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.

~ from Goblin Market
by Christina Rossetti

 

 

 

Another thing for certain occurred during the dark tunnel Christina traveled between the ages of 13 and 17 to emerge so altered: melancholic reflection, observation and appreciation of nature, religious devotion, a gift for lyricism and a deceptively simple use of language was seeded, germinated, and burgeoned into an ever-increasingly beautiful field of poetry and other writings very evocative of the indomitable spirit her grandfather had early on recognized in her.

Not, after all …

Gone Forever

O happy rosebud blooming
Upon thy parent tree,
Nay, thou art too presuming
For soon the earth entombing
Thy faded charms shall be,
And the chill damp consuming.

O happy skylark springing
Up to the broad blue sky,
Too fearless in thy winging,
Too gladsome in thy singing,
Thou also soon shalt lie
Where no sweet notes are ringing.

And through life’s shine and shower
We shall have joy and pain;
But in the summer bower,
And at the morning hour,
We still shall look in vain
For the same bird and flower.

~ Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti, age 18, by Dante Gabrielle Rossetti

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Nature Insight: Ready or Not

And so October begins …

Copyright 2018 by DM Denton

Berries ripened, hips turned yellow to red;

Copyright 2018 by DM Denton

mushrooms appeared so clean in the grass;

Copyright 2018 by DM Denton

and still a flowering here and there, 

as if spring was in the air

not winter on our minds.

Copyright 2018 by DM Denton

But when the leaves turn colors,

the wind turns cold and brings them down …

Copyright 2018 by DM Denton

… before we, at least,  are ready.

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.