Jim Dening is a poet, linguist and former publisher of document collections on boundaries and international relations. He lives in Herefordshire and in the Vaucluse in southern France.
Jim's first poetry collection pebbles, debris appeared in 2003. In 2008 he recorded the volume on cd. A new collection Dealing with the edge was published in 2011.
He has had a commendation in the National Poetry Competition and has won awards in other competitions. His work has been published in Acumen, The Rialto, South, Wolf magazine and elsewhere, including in a landscape review journal. Three of his poems have been set to music for soprano and piano by the American composer Drake Mabry, this piece receiving its world premiere in Poitiers in 2008. He has given many readings, and read to a sell-out audience at the Ledbury Poetry Festival 2012.
Jim's poetry has been described as profound, touching and witty. His is a distinctive voice in poems notable for their onward pace and rhythm, and for their satisfying conclusions. A consistent theme is the study of the moment of reality - the passage of time - the transience of our lives. At the same time the philosophy and honesty of the poems are matched by their irony and humour.
The recent collection Dealing with the edge captures an idea ever-present in our experience, yet we often barely notice it - the nearness of the edge: the edge of life, the edge of belief, the edge of the 'moving surface' we inhabit. In these poems the thing, the experience, the occasion, are starting points for consideration of an idea. Some poems are stories or journeys which turn into parables. The language is a bridge to cross from the thing to the idea.
"As with a Frost or an Edward Thomas, ...it is the mind behind the work which is always interesting, the language being sifted carefully for a kind of enviable transparency which does not come easily to most poets." SOUTH poetry magazine.
"The sense of elegy is moving... " ACUMEN Literary Journal.
"His work is accessible, wry, quite emotionally charged at times and with much dry humour that sometimes flares into anger... The voice is fresh, original and compelling... An enriching, enjoyable collection." Online review at www.patchword.com.
"This is Dening at his most lucid, at the height of his range; breathing fire on the bones of mortality and history." The Wolf Magazine.
"You have a fluent, sophisticated and nicely sceptical eye on 'moeurs contemporaines'... and also a passionate response to nature/history... There's an admirable consistency of tone, and an assurance throughout that is quite rare." Stephen Romer.
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