"Literary Links" - Herefordshire Poets

"Literary Links" is a series of posts celebrating Britain's wonderful links with great authors, dramatists and poets.

Ledbury is rightly proud of their homegrown poet Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, but she is not the only poet to emerge from Herefordshire's influence.

·         William Langland (1332-1386) was born in Ledbury and wrote the famous medieval poem Piers Plowman (1379), which relates the tale of a man falling asleep on Malvern Hills and dreaming of the true Christian life.   The poem was influential in its day, and was often connected with the 1381 Peasant’s Revolt - though the text seeks reform of the church and society it was not advocating rebellion. 

Robert Frost

·         The American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) lived in England during 1912 to 1915.  He often went walking around Ledbury with Edward Thomas (1878-1917) who was consistently indecisive about which route they should take.  That inspired Frost to write the poem “The Road Not Taken”…

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The poem was meant to be playful, but Thomas took it seriously and decided to enlist to fight in World War One.   That road certainly made a difference for two years later he was killed in action leaving a widow and three children.  

John Masefield

  

·         John Masefield (1878-1967) was born in Ledbury where, as a young man, he became acutely aware of the beauty around him and the power of using his imagination to create stories in minute detail.   After the early loss of his parents he joined the navy at age 13, enjoyed living in the "dazzling, beautiful exciting city" of New York at age 17, and returned to live in England at age 19.  After marriage (1903) and fathering two children (1904 & 1910) he rekindled his creative voice and finally found success in 1911 with the release of the narrative poem "Everlasting Mercy".  He had a prolific creative career writing poems, novels, plays and non-fiction.  Some of his poems drew heavily on his childhood such as "Reynard the Fox" describing fox hunting around Ledbury, and "The Widow of Bye Street" - Bye Street being a major street in the town.   In 1930 he was made Poet Laureate.

This poetical tradition along with the nearby Dymock Poets influenced the founding of the annual Ledbury Poetry Festival in 1997 which is held over ten days each July.  It is claimed to be Britain’s largest Poetry Festival.

This is an excerpt from the tour Ledbury which explores this medieval market town.  The full tour is found on www.obelisktours.co.uk