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paperback edition of

Druid Madonna

by

Roy Kerridge

ISBN 978 0 9559996 8 0

78 pp, £6.00

Mr Kerridge's delightful and upsetting tale is of Fandy’s journey (about 200 BC) to the Cauldron of Regeneration to restore her mother to life. Fandy’s adventures and discoveries make this a story that can fascinate readers or listeners aged ten to a hundred or so. Nicely made paperback of the original hardback edition (still available) with Musa’s line drawings.

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    There is More

    poems by

    Frances Blodwell

    ISBN 978 0 9559996 9 7

    46 pp, £4.80

    Imagine that in your fifties you are diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, the prognosis being certain death after the gradual decay of your faculties. What do you make of it?
      What Frances Blodwell made was poems. She had never written poetry seriously and was far too good a critic to misjudge her own works. She did it! There was more:
          “New people
          new and unexpected friendships
          new experiences.
          New depths . . . .”
    If you are looking for sincerity in poetry, try this.

    “Her poems form contemporary psalms: honest, cutting, wry, painful, and yet also open to the reception of ultimate love.”—Church Times

      The first edition was given away as a memorial to the poet. Some of the responses:
    I found it moving and haunting, the voice very distinctive. And a strength of spirit too.
    Thanks very much for the poems. They’re very brave.
    It spoke to my heart and my soul and my mind and all the people I want to share it with raced through my mind. . . . It is so well written. It speaks to my own experience.

    You can find a few of these poems in our Column 39.
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    • THE BRYNMILL PRESS LTD
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    EDGEWAYS BOOKS

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    Directors Brian Lee (chairman)
    Ian Robinson (secretary)
    Michael DiSanto      Duke Maskell

    Since 1970 we have been publishing criticism of life, in many forms including essays, republication of classic works, new poetry and fiction, but all in the common pursuit of true judgement. We publish the only modern edition of The Homilies appointed to be Read in Churches, and Brynmill is the leading contemporary publisher of works by the third great English fabulist, T. F. Powys.

       The two most recent magazines are web publications and can be found by clicking on the Magazine and Columns buttons above.


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    Our books are all available post free from our online bookshop.


    Alternatively, books can be ordered at any bookshop or by post direct from the publisher: sterling cheque with order please, payable to The Brynmill Press Ltd. Click here for order form.

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    copyright © 2012 Brian Lee

    Mrs T.
    (of Finchley)

    One of Us, you represent us still:

    The part of “one”, still yearning for the will
    to cut through all discussion and debate,
    from which so little ever comes out straight,
    and force all our conviction into fact—
    your example, was our earnest to act.
    Our will in yours, was readily satisfied
    by force and fight, in thrust, in power and
         pride,
    by vaunts to which so many were attachés,
    one “war-cry” or another, slogan-clichés—
    the whip-hand of correction, face firm-set,
    against all weakness, “the lefty” or “the wet”—
    all doubts, disputes, distraction, indecision,
    the “Iron Lady”, Great Britain’s single vision:
    proud of her pride, proud of the Nation’s
         choice,
    one kind of confidence, the level untuned
         voice.

    You represent us still, a fact as hard
    as any brass tak that you ever wanted to
    get down to, everywhere, into your grasp,
    and hammer home—bang-bang it, in the hole
    so tight it never would come out again,
    to keep us all at one, by Law and order,
    to give your character, to a shapeless
         culture . . . .
    Who made things hold, but could not make
         them whole.

    So it was your, and still “The Nation’s” fate
    conflicted in the history we create,
    that some love you extremely, others hate.

                                                                     Brian Lee





    Edgeways Books is a division of
    The Brynmill Press Ltd.

    news


    NOW READY

    Our recent Selected Criticism of D. H. Lawrence and the reset edition of Wittgenstein on Frazer can both be had as downloadable pdfs [portable document files]. The texts and pages are exactly the same as the printed books and are sent to the purchaser’s email address usually within one day of ordering, usually in a zip folder. They are fully protected by copyright and only available from this website. For details and prices click on

  • Web Texts


    • FREE TO READ ONLINE
    OR DOWNLOAD

    F. R. Leavis
    the Cambridge Don
    by
    Ian Robinson
    An extensively revised talk previously published in an abridged form in
    The Use of Engish

    *

    Every Literature Helps
    Presidential Address
    to the Leicester Theological Society
    by
    Duncan Campbell OP

    How literature does good is one of the great questions raised by all serious readers and unlikely to receive a definitive answer. Also, the world’s literature is very extensive. So to survey it in an hour’s lecture, organised around the question (asked from the point of view of a Christian priest) how literature helps, is to undertake at least two daunting tasks at once. Fr Campbell does so jauntily and as a critic with fresh responses to some wonderful works. Because this is genuine criticism it invites replies of the form “yes, but”. The memorable remark on the damnation of the leading characters in Wuthering Heights would be even better if extended to include the self-righteous Nelly Dean. The deepest insight in Bleak House is surely not about renunciation of the beloved but about forgiveness. (On which theme we shall bring out a book, by John Haddon, if ever we can overcome technical problems.) And so on. Here, that is, is a treatment of real questions that deserves attention and discussion—as a new demonstration that literary criticism is a non-scientific non-methodical form of thought.

    *

    Poetry in the New Matrix
    The Poet Laureate
    and the Bane
    by
    Brian Lee

    This thirty-two page pamphlet continues the series that includes Poetry and the System with some reflections on recent events and their bearing on the state of poetry and our common life.
    *

    Translation
    vs
    Paraphrase
    by
    A. C. Capey

    Mr Capey’s long-promised criticism of twentieth-century Bible translations


    *
    Memories
    of
    F. R. Leavis
    by
    David Matthews

    Mr Matthews’s memories of more than sixty years, going back to the great days of Downing, are a fresh testimony to the greatest English critic of modern times.
    *

    To read or download click on

  • Web Texts


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