Tag Archives: Thomas Hardy

It’s Landed!

We are delighted to announce the launch of our second publication, What the Tide Left Behind: Poetry of the English Channel! It’s available on our brand new shop here!

This has been such a joy to collate and produce. It takes me right back to my childhood, growing up on the beach on the South Coast of England!

Here’s the blurb…

Come take a voyage on the English Channel, the  tumultuous stretch of water separating southern England from northern France. For hundreds of years, the Channel has acted as inspiration for renouned poets such as Charlotte Smith, William Wordsworth, John Keats, William Lisle Bowles,  Thomas Hardy and many more. Wild, or calm as a millpond, this is your invitation to hoist the mainsail and navigate these pages, sunbleached and brine-soaked! You will find poems of departure: of embarking travellers and stormy crossings. There’s poems of arrival: of or weary travellers heading home. You will see solitary speakers standing on the shore, staring out across the foaming swell, ever wondering what lies beyond the waves. The poems encompass themes of identity and belonging, a sense of what it means to be British and a deep love for England’s coastal landscapes. What the Tide left Behind is a poetic celebration of the mercurial and untamed nature of the English Channel and the adventurous souls who dare to sail upon it!

The unboxing…

At the weekend we went down the coast to Worthing and celebrated, looking out over the pier, with hundreds of starlings readying for a murmuration overhead!

…and the celebration!
Standard

Hardy’s Cottage

Up a woodland track and nestled in trees, this cob and thatch cottage was where Thomas Hardy was born and grew up. These woods were his childhood playground and where he learnt about the natural world, which so richly illustrated  in his novels and poems. ‘Egdon Heath’ of The Return of the Native fame, sits just behind. Rushy Pond, also featuring in his work, is a five minute walk further into the woods. It is owned by the National Trust and is located near Dorchester. You can take a guided tour around it, Well worth a visit!

Rushy Pond
Medlars growing in the garden

We love Thomas Hardy at Wild Boar Press! His poems are featured in both our anthologies. Below is his poem from The King’s Mark: Poetry of the New Forest 1087-1930 which is available here.

The ‘death-marks’ Hardy mentions in the poem, are what were historically known as the ‘King’s mark’ in the New Forest, dating from the Tudor period. Trees due to be felled for timber had an arrow carved into the trunk. You can still occasionally spot these historic marks on ancient oaks that were somehow missed, or indeed on our cover above!

Throwing a Tree, New Forest

by Thomas Hardy

I

The two executioners stalk along over the knolls

Bearing two axes with heavy heads shining and wide,

And a long limp two-handled saw toothed for cutting great boles,

And so they approach the proud tree that bears the death-mark on its side.

II

Jackets doffed they swing axes and chop away just above ground

And the chips fly about and lie white on the moss and fallen leaves;

Till a broad deep gash in the bark is hewn all the way round, wood;

And one of them tries to hook upward a rope, which at last he achieves.

III

The saw then begins, till the top of the tall giant shivers:

The shivers are seen to grow greater with each cut than before:

They edge out the saw, tug the rope; but the tree only quivers,

And kneeling and sawing again, they step back to try pulling once more.

IV

Then, lastly, the living mast sways, further sways: with a shout Job and Ike rush aside.

Reached the end of its long staying powers

The tree crashes downward: it shakes all its neighbours throughout,

And two hundred years’ steady growth has been ended in less than two hours.

You can read more about Thomas Hardy here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy

Speak soon! KJ

Standard