This is a new collection of poetry and beyond firmly centered on the Brontës. In the words of the author, Jane Satterfeld:
The book balances history-based dramatic monologues with eco-poems, playful reinventions, and more serious reflections on the Brontës’ legacy for women writers and women in general. “Forfeit,” which brings to life Emily’s reaction to the loss of her hawk and other pets, was selected by Deryn Rees-Jones for the 2015 Ledbury Prize.
The Baddass Brontësby Jane SatterfeldDiode EditionsISBN: 9781939728579March 2023In 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 galore: 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.
Some previously published poems are Errand Hanging with Emily Brontë (Shenandoah, Volume 72, Number 1 · Fall 2022), Haworth of Other Days (Library Matters, Issue 14.2).
The author is interviewed on
Shenandoah and we cannot help ourselves but for quoting her;
Shenandoah and we cannot help ourselves but for quoting her;
Is there a poem(/story/essay/passage) you feel is a good representative of the collection as a whole, or do you have a current favorite? Can you describe one of those poems or quote us a couple of lines?The title poem is definitely a favorite! The book moves between playful re-inventions of the sisters, explorations of their legacy, and history-based dramatic monologues. This poem has elements of all three angles: Emily, Charlotte, and Anne are re-imagined as modern-day superheroes, striding across the moors in thunder-and-lightning print dresses.…Beguiling cocktails?They can’t even. Their laughter sets the houseabuzz as any hive. They go commando whenthey can, in town or on the primrose path.
