The Badass Brontes

by Jane Satterfield

In blazing poems of biography and reinvention, Jane Satterfield’s The Badass Brontës explores the lives and afterlives of sisters Emily, Charlotte, and Anne, “hellbent/at books & candle-lit” and the inspiration for readers and writers as far-ranging as Kate Bush and Sylvia Plath. A Yorkshire cleric’s daughters forced to break into publishing by masquerading as men, here they burn brightly as themselves in poems that range from life narratives and lyric elegies to witty inquiries into the sisters’ status as popular culture avatars. Here you’ll find a poem in the form of an Internet quiz that reveals which Brontë you most resemble, a look at the tattoos a modern-day Emily might have worn, the title poem in which the sisters stride forward as action heroes, and a poem on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s real-life attempt to summon Charlotte’s ghost in a séance. Elsewhere, Satterfield’s vision looks to the crises of our own age. In a sequence about desire and women’s choices, Emily is reimagined as an apprentice hedgewitch encountering the medicinals of “Eve’s herbs,” a pupil tutored in the secrets that they harbor; meanwhile, Charlotte faces the primal trauma that robbed the sisters of their mother when she confronts the reality of her own fatal pregnancy. Here are treasures from poems that reflect Emily’s status as a proto-environmentalist whose rescued hawk Nero is a source of joy and grief, to further channelings of the Brontë sisters’ sensitivity to fragile landscapes and the more-than-human world. For longtime Brontë fans and newcomers alike, The Badass Brontës is a poetic tour-de-force that remixes and reinvents the lives, afterlives, and creative achievements of three extraordinary women whose influence continues to be felt.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2023

Reviews

[Jenna]

A poetic exploration of the life, work, and legacy of Emily Bronte (and, to a lesser extent, sisters Charlotte and Anne), considered in parallel with events in Satterfield's own world almost two centuries later (most prominently, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision). For Bronte fans, this book is deliciously well-researched (and well-footnoted): prior to reading this, I'd had no idea that as kids the Bronte sisters once went on hunger strike to protest their aunt and guardian's plan to send away an indisposed servant girl, or that Harriet Beecher Stowe claimed to have made contact with Charlotte Bronte's ghost during a séance. For poets and other writers, this book provides an excellent exemplar of how to write a book about such a familiar topic as the pandemic without writing too directly or too ponderously about it: by filtering it through the lens of another subject, a historical one, thereby allowing its more timeless lessons to rise to the surface.

You may know I'm a longtime Bronte obsessive (although more of a Villette-oriented Charlotte than an Emily): when as a youngster I learned my family was about to get home internet access for the first time, my dominant emotion was excitement that I'd finally be able to connect with other Bronteites (there were no others at my school). If this also describes you, you'll want to check The Badass Brontes out.

A couple of sample poems:
-"Letter to Emily Bronte": https://www.thecommononline.org/lette...
-a trio of triolets, "Which Bronte Sister Are You?": https://www.literarymatters.org/11-3-...

[Carla]

Very well-researched poetry collection (with some Bronte facts and trivia that were new to me.) For Emily fans, a must-read.

[Lesley Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jane Satterfield conjures “mouthy & magnificent” versions of the famous nineteenth literary sisters in her prize-winning sixth collection. Emily Brontë, the most badass, is the poet’s clear favorite, but Satterfield invokes a whole well-populated world through historical detail, playful speculation, and gorgeous metaphors: “the flare and flame of the fox threading high hills with its ochre,” “a hedgehog, all inky spined.” The variety of lyric shapes is impressive, but my favorite piece in this book may be a three-part prose poem partly inspired by the Dobbs decision. Above all, Satterfield persuades you that the Brontë sisters remain vividly present, accompanying the author on pandemic era shopping trips, drinking dirty chai, going “commando on the primrose path.” Recommended not just for Brontë fans but for any reader who feels a little haunted.

[catarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poetry with lovely use of imagery & diction :)