1829
In 1829, Alison Brackenbury's first collection for seven years, the poet travels to three continents: there are poems from her Asian, African and European journeys, and the different peopled landscapes that she visits are evoked with her resonant lightness of touch, her granting rhythms and the grace of a subtle, distinctive prosody.
The title poem was broadcast as part of the Mozart bicentenary celebrations on BBC Radio 3. Music has always featured in Brackenbury's poems; in this volume, which risks the dark of a minor key, it becomes a central motif. The poems travel in time as well as space. They also stay at home in a world of disorderly domesticity with cats and ponies.
Peter Forbes, editor of Poetry Review describes her as "incontrovertibly the real thing, with an insistent, insidious music that once learnt becomes addictive".
The title poem was broadcast as part of the Mozart bicentenary celebrations on BBC Radio 3. Music has always featured in Brackenbury's poems; in this volume, which risks the dark of a minor key, it becomes a central motif. The poems travel in time as well as space. They also stay at home in a world of disorderly domesticity with cats and ponies.
Peter Forbes, editor of Poetry Review describes her as "incontrovertibly the real thing, with an insistent, insidious music that once learnt becomes addictive".
About the author
Alison Brackenbury was born in Lincolnshire in 1953 and studied at Oxford. She now lives in Gloucestershire, where she works, as a director and manual worker, in the family metal finishing business. Her Carcanet collections include "Dreams of Power" (1981), "Breaking Ground" (1984), "Christmas Roses" (1988), "Selected Poems" (1991), "1829" (1995), "After Beethoven" (2000) and "Bricks and Ballads" (2004). Her poems have been included on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and 1829 was produced by Julian May for Radio 3. Her work recently won a Cholmondeley Award.