D.M. Denton's Blog, page 3
September 22, 2023
10 Fascinating Facts About Christina Rossetti, Victorian Poet
Christina Rossetti by Dante Gabriel RossettiA heartfelt thank you to Nava Atlas, who manages the wonderful Literary Ladies Guide website, for allowing me to contribute this article and promote The Dove Upon Her Branch, A Novel Portrait of Christina Rossetti.
10 Fascinating Facts
About Christina Rossetti
Victorian Poet
Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 – 1894) is among the most important female poets of the 19th century. Presented here are fascinating facts about Christina Rossetti, the Victorian English poet whose work continues to resonate and inspire.
Her popular works, including “Goblin Market,” “Remember,” “In an Artist’s Studio,” “Who Has Seen the Wind,” and “In the Bleak Midwinter,” are a small part of her prolific output.
The American author Elbert Hubbard wrote in Christina Rossetti , “Christina had the faculty of seizing beautiful moments, exalted feelings, sublime emotions … In all her lines there is a half-sobbing tone.
Read entire article on the Literary Ladies Guide site …
Illustration © by DM DentonRemember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
(from “Remember” by Christina 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.
September 20, 2023
Rossetti Wellsprings of Extraordinary Creativity and Living
I’ve read three novels by D.M. Denton, and although I liked the other two, A House Near Luccoli, To a Strange Somewhere Fled and Without the Veil Between, The Dove Upon Her Branch is my favorite of her novels so far. I had a little trouble getting into the pace of the novel reading the first chapter. Whether it was the mood I was in the day I started it or the kind of difficulty I get into when I start to read Proust with his minute details, at first the action seemed to move a little too slowly. But then my awareness of what Denton was doing shifted, and from then on, I became increasingly engrossed in the everyday details of Christina Rossetti and her family’s lives. I ended up loving the novel.
The Ros[s]etti’s as a family were one of the more interesting literary phenomena of the mid to late 1800s. The father, an Italian poet and political activist who was exiled to England, was, in addition to his reputation as a poet, a major Dante scholar and teacher of the Italian language at King’s College. Of the children of Gabriele and Franc[e]s Polid[o]ri Rossetti, three made significant contributions to the arts in England. Maria, the oldest daughter, wrote a significant book on Dante, several highly regarded religious books, and translated books from Italian; Dante Gabriel was one of the most important artists and poets of the age, and Christina was considered at the time the heir to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the great English poet married to the equally famous poet Robert Browning.
The Dove Upon Her Branch is the story of Christina who wrote both children’s poetry and poetry for adults. Before she succumbed to the illness that eventually took her life, there was some assumption that she would be the Poet Laureate of England after Tennyson gave up the post, but her illness kept that from happening.
All the family members as well as most of the important poets, writers, thinkers, and artists of the age populate Denton novel’s pages. Dante Gabriel and his sometimes-notorious exploits as the leading Pre-Raphaelite artist certainly add a spice to our understanding of this age in contrast to the usual vision conjured by the words the Victorian age with its sober, conservative queen. Christina herself, with her insecurities and her somewhat amazing strength as a woman in an era where women were expected to take a secondary role, comes across in the novel as someone who, as hesitant as she sometimes could be, is an independent thinker and spirit who never married and lived life as she thought it should be lived.
What made the novel important to me, however, was the amazing amount of detail about the Rossetti household and the milieu in which the family lived that Denton conjures, partially from research and partially from her imagination. This is not a book where Indiana Jones is racing through a tunnel as a rolling boulder hurtles toward him as he tries to escape certain death, but it is a tapestry of life as it was lived in the 1800s that had a different pace from the frenetic pace of our century with the explosion of change drive by technology and an ever-expanding global civilization.
I think there is always value at examining the lives of people like Christina Rossetti to see what the wellsprings of extraordinary creativity truly are. Christina Ros[s]etti’s poetry, especially her children’s poems, still represent some of the most extraordinary poetry ever written by an English poet. But there is also value in understanding the context of a time through the details of the lives lived during that time. I am just glad that I have read Denton’s latest novel.
Amazon US: Click here
Amazon UK: Click here
Please contact me if you are interestedin purchasing a signed copy.
Illustration © by DM DentonA Dove Upon Her BranchA Novel Portrait of Christina Rossetti
now has its own Facebook page!
©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.
August 17, 2023
Absorbing, Insightful and Enlightening
Thank you to D. Bennison at Bennison Booksfor this beautiful review of
The Dove Upon Her Branch, A Novel Portrait of Christina Rossetti
This novelised account of the life of the English poet Christina Rossetti takes the reader deep into the heart of the fascinating and remarkably gifted Rossetti family. We also encounter the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, co-founded by Christina’s mercurial brother, Dante Gabriel, as flawed as he is gifted. Over the course of this meticulously researched novel, we also meet Christina’s steady, slightly older brother, William Michael, and her clever and faithful sister, Maria, whose character and personality shines out from these pages.
The lively depictions of Christina’s family and friends are one of the huge pleasures of reading this book as we follow her life from childhood into young womanhood, middle age and death at 64. A complex character, we share Christina’s powerful and fluctuating emotions as she struggles with the idea of marriage; Dante Gabriel’s relationships with other women; her ambivalence towards the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; and doubts about the worth of her own poetry.
The undertow of sadness and tragedy is always present, from Dante’s self-destructive behaviour and her beloved sister’s death to her father’s long-term incapacity and her own life-threatening ill-health.
A huge bonus is the author’s stunning artwork, to be found on the front cover and within the pages of this absorbing, insightful and enlightening work.
©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.
July 29, 2023
Now Available! The Dove Upon Her Branch
“How many children could say their home hosted the humblest and highest at the same time, on any given evening invaded by expatriates their father never hesitated to invite in? Through the back door he welcomed a bookseller, organ grinder, biscuit maker, vagrant macaroni man, and one called Galli who thought he was Christ. Through the front, disgraced Italian counts and generals made as officious entrances as a small house on Charlotte Street afforded.”
Christina Georgina Rossetti is the youngest of four siblings in a close-knit, creative Anglo-Italian family. A spirited child like her brother, Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in adolescence she struggles with being sickly and depressed. She emerges “a dove on a solitary branch,” realizing her voice through writing, most exceptionally poetry.
Her respectable Victorian life teeters on the edge of a bohemian one. London is Christina’s beginning and end, travels, possibilities and impossibilities for love and marriage, ambivalent ambition, piety, charity, illness, and bonds of blood, heart, and soul tell her story. Journeys through reflection and imagination create her legacy.
Amazon.com (US):Available at Amazon.uk, Amazon.ca, and Amazon worldwideThank you for your interest and support!
©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.
June 22, 2023
Cover Reveal for The Dove Upon Her Branch
How many children could say their home hosted the humblest and highest at the same time, on any given evening invaded by expatriates their father never hesitated to invite in? Through the back door he welcomed a bookseller, organ grinder, biscuit maker, vagrant macaroni man, and one called Galli who thought he was Christ. Through the front, disgraced Italian counts and generals made as officious entrances as a small house on Charlotte Street afforded.
Christina Georgina Rossetti is the youngest of four siblings in a close-knit, creative Anglo-Italian family. A spirited child like her brother, Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in adolescence she struggles with being sickly and depressed. She emerges a dove on a solitary branch, realizing her voice through writing, most exceptionally poetry.
Her respectable Victorian life teeters on the edge of a bohemian one. London is Christina’s beginning and end, travels, possibilities and impossibilities for love and marriage, ambivalent ambition, piety, charity, illness, and bonds of blood, heart, and soul tell her story. Journeys through reflection and imagination create her legacy.
Watch this space for the novel’s release.Sign up for email notification hereI appreciate your patience.As we pass the Summer Solstice, I share a beautiful poem by Christina.
Summer
by Christina Rossetti
Winter is cold-hearted,
Spring is yea and nay,
Autumn is a weathercock
Blown every way.
Summer days for me
When every leaf is on its tree;
When Robin’s not a beggar,
And Jenny Wren’s a bride,
And larks hang singing, singing, singing
Over the wheat-fields wide,
And anchored lilies ride,
And the pendulum spider
Swings from side to side;
And blue-black beetles transact business,
And gnats fly in a host,
And furry caterpillars hasten
That no time be lost
nd moths grow fat and thrive,
And ladybirds arrive
Before green apples blush,
Before green nuts embrown,
Why one day in the country
Is worth a month in town;
Is worth a day and a year
Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion
That days drone elsewhere.
The Day Dream by Dante Gabriel 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.
May 12, 2023
While Yet May’s Lyre is Tuning
Christina asked for nothing but warm milk, for Princess, too, and prayers for Gabriel to remain on earth. She thought of the light in his eyes, the velvety resonance of his voice, his lounging walk, and the largeness of his embrace. He never minded if she tousled his hair, even to reveal it was receding, or stroked his beard up to his ears, and his moustache to feel the breath from his lips and nostrils. She saw him as she feared she never would again, negligently theatrical with his waistcoat buttoned up and sack-coat hanging to his knees. Sofa-posing with his head down and feet up, he was as easily elegant in corpulence as he was when slim and agile.
There’s blood between us, love, my love, there’s father’s blood, there’s brother’s blood, and blood’s a bar I cannot pass.
from The Dove Upon Her Branch, A Novel Portrait of Christina Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti by George Frederic WattsThe 12th of May marks the 195th anniversaryof the birth of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Painter, Poet, Founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
English May
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
WOULD God your health were as this month of May
Should be, were this not England,—and your face
Abroad, to give the gracious sunshine grace
And laugh beneath the budding hawthorn-spray.
But here the hedgerows pine from green to grey
While yet May’s lyre is tuning, and her song
Is weak in shade that should in sun be strong;
And your pulse springs not to so faint a lay.
If in my life be breath of Italy,
Would God that I might yield it all to you!
So, when such grafted warmth had burgeoned through
The languor of your Maytime’s hawthorn-tree,
My spirit at rest should walk unseen and see
The garland of your beauty bloom anew.
My novel about Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s youngest sister, Victorian poet Christina Rossetti, is getting close to publication.
Watch this space and/sign up for notification of its release.
©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.
March 14, 2023
The Dove Upon Her Branch
“How many children could say their home hosted the humblest and highest at the same time, on any given evening invaded by expatriates their father never hesitated to invite in? Un cercatore or un seccatore, beggar or bore, Papa satirized them. Through the back door he welcomed a bookseller, organ grinder, biscuit maker, vagrant macaroni man, and one called Galli who thought he was Christ. Others entered that way with a Masonic knock and handshake. Through the front, disgraced Italian counts and generals made as officious an entrance as a small house on Charlotte Street afforded. Mama blushed every time she spoke of the visit from Nicolò Paganini, ‘all in black, without his violin but boasting the long hair he tossed about when he performed.'”
Christina Georgina Rossetti is the youngest of four siblings in a close-knit, creative Anglo-Italian family. A spirited child like her brother, Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in adolescence she struggles with being sickly and depressed, believing she would “be part of the statistic of girls who never made it to womanhood”. She emerges and matures, “a solitary dove upon her branch”, realizing her voice through poetry, “composed out of remembering while trying to forget.”
Her respectable Victorian life teeters on the edge of a bohemian one. “A raucous entrance by artists Holman Hunt, John Millais, George Stephens, and sculptor Thomas Woolner, was hardly quietened by Gabriel who never doubted his family needed livening up.” London is Christina’s beginning and end. Travels, possibilities and impossibilities for love and marriage, ambivalent ambition, piety, charity, illness, and bonds of blood, heart, and soul tell her story. Journeys through reflection and imagination create her legacy.
The Dove Upon Her BranchA Novel Portrait of Christina Rossetti
by DM DentonComing soon
Sign up for notification of its release:
http://www.dmdenton-author-artist.com/contact.html
Preview book trailer for DM Denton’s fictional account of the 19th century poet, Christina Rossetti, youngest sister of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founder, painter, and poet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Excerpts from poems by Christina Rossetti (in the Public Domain)
Music by Mendelssohn: no 1 Songs Without Words, Opus 30 (Public Domain piano from MusOpen)
Too late for love, too late for joy,
Too late, too late!
You loiter’d on the road too long,
You trifled at the gate:
The enchanted dove upon her branch
Died without a mate;
The enchanted princess in her tower
Slept, died, behind the grate;
Her heart was starving all this while
You made it wait.
From The Bride Song by Christina 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.
February 21, 2023
The Cat and the Fiddle: In the Spirit of ‘Carnevale’
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are a few theories on where the name Carnevale originated, the most popular put to verse by Lord Bryon:
This feast is named the Carnival, which beingInterpreted, implies “farewell to flesh”:
So call’d, because the name and thing agreeing,
Through Lent they live on fish, both salt and fresh.
With roots in the Latin phrase carnem levare, “put away flesh” (carnem: flesh – levare: put away), the name evolved into carnelevare in Old Italian, then carnelevale, then carnevale, and, finally, carne, vale!—“Farewell, meat!”— appropriately referencing the Catholic tradition of giving up meat-eating from Ash Wednesday to Easter.
The Italian carnival that usually comes to mind has taken place in Venice since the eleventh century. In the seventeenth century these “Baroque celebrations” were “a way to save the prestigious image of Venice in the world” (Wikipedia), and it became even more popular and licentious in the 1700s until outlawed in 1797 when Venice was ruled by the King of Austria who also forbade the wearing of masks at any time. It reappeared during the nineteenth century, primarily for private celebrations and artistic expression. Carnevale di Venezia was revived in 1979 as an annual cultural event pronouncing Venice as even more magical and surreal with actors, acrobats, musicians, residents and visitors disguised in extravagant masks and costumes while enjoying themselves to the extreme.
In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, many Italian cities had a tradition of mask-wearing, enabling questionable behavior among those needing to protect their reputations, laws passed to restrict masquerading to certain times of the year like Carnevale. Besides serving as subterfuge for inquisitors, spies, high officials and nobility who couldn’t resist behaving badly, donning masks presented an opportunity for covert defiance by those on the lower levels of society.
Copyright by DM Denton 2015
For those of you who have read my historical fiction A House Near Luccoli , you will know that Martedi Grasso offers some pivotal scenes. Although the novel begins a few years after the 17th century composer Alessandro Stradella ‘s arrival in Genoa, Carnevale was initially his reason for going (well, there might have been one or two other reasons …) and then he was encouraged to stay.This week I go to Genoa, invited by some gentlemen of that city, where I will spend carnival …
~ from a letter Stradella wrote to Polo Michiel (one of his patrons), dated Turin, 16 December, 1677
I arrived in Genoa safe and sound already last week, where I was favored by many gentlemen who vied to have me in their homes … And from the moment of my arrival till now, I have always had to spend my time with ladies and gentlemen, all greatly interested in me, and actually they favour me with so many kindnesses and so much applause that I do not know what more I could desire, and in every way they show very great pleasure in my inadequate talent.
~ from a letter Stradella wrote to Polo Michiel, dated Genoa, 8 January 1678 
Wander through this brief moment in Italian Baroque musical history and let the author and Alessandro Stradella, Donatella, and a whole host of wonderful characters give you the “spirit of Carnevale“.
~ Martin Shone, author of the poetry collections Silence Happens, Being Human, After the Rain, and other poetry collections
Sleep well tonight. She wished she had taken his advice, but she couldn’t stop looking at the explicitly elegant gown hanging on the wardrobe. Nonna would have enjoyed the sight. It was silk and pearl buttoned, curving and billowing white, beribboned in sapphire and trimmed in bronze. Also warm and cold, tight and loose, depending on what the weather and outcome would be. A few hours later she was like a cat that had fallen from an open window, suddenly finding herself where she both longed and was afraid to be, feeling the hardness of pavement and softness of air.
Alessandro insisted she put on her mask again. “And practice on the way.”
“Practice what?”
“Walking like a cat, purring like a cat.”
“Really.” She wasn’t averse to doing so. “I’ve never seen a blue one.”
“You’ll see others turning green.”
Although her face was immovable and pale, she couldn’t hide her pleasure.
“All that’s left is for you to rub against my legs.”
Alessandro was all in white, as if he had absorbed winter from his hat like a boat with one wind-torn sail to frill topped hose and overly flapped boots. He was wimpled in lacy layers to his shoulders, tightly short coated and cavalier, out of fashion but not style, laddered rows of braid with buttons unfastened to the shine of his shirt also showing through gaping slashes on his sleeves. It would have been a perfect disguise but for the distinctiveness of his stride and attitude of his head exaggerated by a duckbill mask, the shine of his lower lip appearing when his expressive, unmistakable voice did.
~ Excerpt from A House Near Luccoli
The gift of a sonnet, ‘stolen’ music, inexpressible secrets,
and an irrepressible spirit
stow away on Donatella’s journeyTo A Strange Somewhere Fled (sequel to A House Near Luccoli)
©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.
January 17, 2023
Fluctuations
She rose, and brighter shone …
from Fluctuations by Anne Brontë
January 17, 2023, marks 203 years since Anne Brontë was born in Thornton, West Yorkshire, England, youngest of the six children of Maria Branwell from Penzance and Irish clergyman Patrick Brontë.
My novel Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit is my love letter to Anne. Not Anne, the ‘less gifted’ sister of Charlotte and Emily … nor the Anne who ‘also wrote two novels’, but Anne herself, courageous, committed, daring and fiercely individual: a writer of remarkable insight, prescience and moral courage whose work can still astonish us today.
~ Deborah Bennison, Bennison Books
Of course, honoring Anne can be done at any time by reading her poetry and prose and what others have been inspired to write about her; also, (perhaps, a way that would please her the most) by following her example of good and purposeful living achieved through resilience, faith, honesty, compassion and – invaluable during an isolating pandemic – self-containment, patience, and flexibility.
Anne’s two novels and unfinished ‘Portrait of a girl with a dog’
Anne thought of … a word, more than a word, a philosophy, simple but profound, out of the mouth of someone who spoke simply and succinctly, not unlike Tabby, or, in the old days, Nancy and Sarah Garrs, who sometimes shared wisdom with just a comment on the weather.
Copyright 2017 by DM Denton
“Fluctuations.”Now it was a title for a poem …
Anne stroked Flossy’s ears as she began to quietly read out loud, “‘Fluctuations. What though the Sun had left my sky—’” Her doe-eyed companion looked up, understanding nothing and everything, wagging his tail and letting it drop limply, whining because he didn’t like it when his mistress was upset. “Shh, shh. It’s all right, sweet pup. ‘To save me from despair the blessed Moon arose on high, and shone serenely there.’”It was all right. It would be all right. Perhaps not every moment, not when she thought of who she must wait until she died to see again, or how there was less heartache but more frustration in believing she would never feel fully useful in society or even at home unless she accomplished something meaningful. Still, it could be worse if she was without the resolve to make her life fruitful, pursue a well-cultivated mind and well-disposed heart, have the strength to help others be strong, or, especially, the faith to endure and rise above endurance.“‘I thought such wan and lifeless beams could ne’er my heart repay, for the bright sun’s most transient gleams that cheered me through the day. But as above that mist’s control she rose and brighter shone—’” Flossy looked up at her again. “‘I felt a light upon my soul!’”Anne knew life couldn’t fail her as long as she acknowledged the blessings of animals and nature, music and prayer. She also valued family and friendship, which, of course, could be one and the same. At times it was stifling back at the parsonage, as though all the windows and doors that held her to being the smallest, quietest, last and least likely to surprise were kept locked by those who loved her for their own conclusions. Anne could never think of home as a prison, but once she flew the nest and realized she had the wherewithal to, if not quite soar, make survivable landings, she knew it was restrictive. She had always suspected being overly protected was as dangerous as being unguarded, like enjoying the rose without noticing its thorns. It wasn’t as though her family was unaware of the world and its ways. Daily and weekly doses of newspapers and magazines initiated lively discussions, mostly between Branwell and Charlotte with Emily grunting, about religion and revolution and parliamentary reform, potato famine and, closer to home, the plight of the wool laborers and sick in their father’s parish.Anne was afraid responding to political, social, and moral issues through the amusement of fantasy was more about outwitting these realities than addressing them. She even felt some shame at having gone along with the juvenilia that made believe the world was at her fingertips, its maneuverings entertaining, romantic, and escapist, although she could almost forgive the child she was then. Halfway through her twenties, having lived most of the last four years away from her family, she was finally fully-fledged, the nature she was born with at last standing up for itself, wanting its voice to be heard, with the courage to admit she was meant to wear truths not masks.In or away from Haworth, the best companionship was often with herself alone: the best being the reflection that wouldn’t falsely flatter for the sake of avoiding hard feelings, wasn’t eager to congratulate in order to keep her friendship, and didn’t encourage self-pity because it was wanted in return. Anne had long since decided to be honest with herself even when it meant facing a harsh reality, like the prospect of never marrying and having children. Whatever God’s will, she hoped a few of the schemes in her head, humble and limited as they were, might come to something. She could hear Emily guffawing. Why shouldn’t they? You worry too much. Yes, she did, a correction that was one of the most difficult to make if she thought she must choose between passion and dispassion.Excerpt from
Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit
Illustration (from Without the Veil Between) by DM Denton
Fluctuations
What though the Sun had left my sky;
To save me from despair
The blessed Moon arose on high,
And shone serenely there.
I watched her, with a tearful gaze,
Rise slowly o’er the hill,
While through the dim horizon’s haze
Her light gleamed faint and chill.
I thought such wan and lifeless beams
Could ne’er my heart repay,
For the bright sun’s most transient gleams
That cheered me through the day:
But as above that mist’s control
She rose, and brighter shone,
I felt her light upon my soul;
But now–that light is gone!
Thick vapours snatched her from my sight,
And I was darkling left,
All in the cold and gloomy night,
Of light and hope bereft:
Until, methought, a little star
Shone forth with trembling ray,
To cheer me with its light afar–
But that, too, passed away.
Anon, an earthly meteor blazed
The gloomy darkness through;
I smiled, yet trembled while I gazed–
But that soon vanished too!
And darker, drearier fell the night
Upon my spirit then;–
But what is that faint struggling light?
Is it the Moon again?
Kind Heaven! increase that silvery gleam,
And bid these clouds depart,
And let her soft celestial beam
Restore my fainting heart!
~Acton Bell (Anne Brontë)
Happy birthday, dearest Anne!
©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.
January 16, 2023
Showcasing our authors – Thomas Davis: a contemporary take on the epic
Another fine author with Bennison Books! Not many publishers today would take on an epic poem. Not many authors today could write one with such poetic and storytelling skill. Thomas Davis has also published with All Things That Matter Press and Four Windows Press. The Weirding Storm” moves effortlessly and clearly, exquisite prose-poetry swelling every line, verse, page and chapter. There is pure genius in creative composition that marries complexity with clarity, achieves poeticism without pretention, and engages the lover of story and language equally, all the while offering insight into human nature and the fragile possibilities of survival for the world and its inhabitants. “The Weirding Storm” is an important classic of our time, deserving much attention and acclaim. From my review on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ZHtDcA.
One of the most unusual and exciting projects taken on by Bennison Books was the publication of The Weirding Storm, A Dragon Epic by American author Thomas Davis.
It was a genuine honour to work with such a gifted and prolific writer and publisher on this contemporary revival of an ancient poetic tradition. As Thomas explains:
“Epic poetry has shaped thought and inspired men and women to feel the pulse of the universe for a long, long time. It mirrors our deepest selves.
“This age, in all its confusion, is a continuation of ages past, not a separation, and the epic still has a relevant story to tell. Perhaps more so than ever.”
Thomas Davis’s published work includes his historical novel, In the Unsettled Homeland of Dreams(All Things That Matter Press, 2019), which was awarded the prestigious 2019 Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, and Sustaining the…
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