Things I have kept – Denise Bennett
ISBN: 9781788648882
£9.99
From objects imbued with meaning and memory to the places that nurture and anchor us, Denise Bennett’s poetry is grounded in a sense of the sacredness of the everyday. There is a deep sense of justice and relationships of integrity here that burn a bright light in dark places and an attention to the everyday that asserts the sacredness of all life. The poetry here is not only accomplished but deeply felt. It comes from a place of listening and seeing with the heart and is delivered in imagery that is lucid, precise and moving.
Praise for Things I Have Kept
When Denise Bennett reaches for the best phrase, she finds it. She moves skilfully from poems of comfort and security in recent dark times to a powerful social awareness of lives movingly recovered from the past. Love and disarming honesty is at the heart of all she writes. This accomplished collection is one thing I will always keep.
Robyn Bolam
This collection of new poems is the fruit of a life long devotion to poetry. Informed by an emotional connection with the city of her birth, Denise Bennett brings Portsmouth’s rich history to life, whether it’s the Sailor Zoo on Whale Island or the aftermath experienced by families in the wake of German bombers during WW2. Central to the collection is the homage paid to family and community — ‘the precious spelling out of kinship’. These are truthful poems that address the wonder, as well as the ‘struggle of everyday living’, head on. Above all Things I have kept is a testimony to the poet’s faith in the transformative power of poetry, reminding us that some things are too precious to be thrown away.
Maggie Sawkins
Author biography
Denise Bennett has an MA in creative writing and is widely published in poetry journals and has been placed in many poetry competitions. She has three collections: Planting the Snow Queen and Parachute Silk by Oversteps Books and Water Chits by Indigo Dreams. She is a prize-winning poet being the winner of the Poetry Society’s inaugural Hamish Canham Prize. Most recently she won first prize in 2022 in the U3A (University of the Third Age), national poetry competition for her poem Jay and was awarded second prize in the Southport Writers Circle poetry competition in 2023 for her poem Water Muscles. She currently runs poetry and writing workshops in community settings, having taught creative writing for thirty years for Portsmouth College as part of their adult education programme. Much of her work is inspired by family events, local history, art work and nature. She has contributed many poems to The University of Portsmouth’s Literary Map, an online interactive map created to highlight Portsmouth’s impact on literature and inspire new writers. She always carries a notebook and pen to gather eaves-droppings and observations, the seeds for her poems.