You have, through some unfathomable twist of destiny, arrived in a dark and lonesome wood, wherein the straight road no longer lies. Here, in these hallowed pages, you will read of a descent into the depths of the inferno, where light is but a memory. Here, you will find The English Cantos.
Like Dante before him, the poet James Sale takes us on a journey into a contemporary vision of hell and heaven, based off his near-death experience in Ward 17 of Bournemouth General. The English Cantos is an epic told in 33 cantos, using the terza rima of Dante, standing four-square against the meaninglessness of post-modernism. As Virgil guided Dante, so too Dante will guide James on this incredible journey.
Want to listen to an extract of the poem? This startling video was produced by Andrew Benson Brown. Enter the eighth ward of hell…
You can also read extracts from the poem published by the Society of Classical Poets:
Canto 1 – “It had to be – that long descent began”
Canto 2 – “Another depth beckoned.”
Canto 3 – “My soul in living now wanted to hide “
Canto 4 – “And how I ran – in terror from those cries”
Canto 9 (extract) – “I do not know how long that tunnel was”
Following on from the events of HellWard, and echoing the tripartite hell-purgatory-heaven division of Dante’s epic, James Sale’s modern poem continues with StairWell, volume 2 of The English Cantos.
You can listen (and watch) Andrew Benson Brown reading an extract from the third Canto below.
Extracts from StairWell have been published on the Society of Classical Poets; you can find them here:
Canto 1 – “Yet, how could that be, for I was lost?”
Canto 3 (extract) – “Recalled to me what I’d tried to forget”
Canto 8 (extract) – “One nave, huge, high-ceilinged, a new-found land”
Canto 10 (extract) – “A line stretched back to lost and ancient days;”
Canto 10 (extract 2) – “Not he. Oh! How his suffering’s entrenched…”
Following on from the events of StairWell, and echoing the tripartite hell-purgatory-heaven division of Dante’s epic, James Sale’s modern poem concludes with DoorWay, volume 3 of The English Cantos.
Extracts from DoorWay have been published on the Society of Classical Poets; you can find them here:
Canto 2 (extract) – “Of heaven experience—return to tell all;”
Canto 3 (extract) – “Words stifled inwards as human thinking failed.”
Canto 5 (extract) – “Incredible, beyond the veil of death”
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Here are what some people have said about The English Cantos:
“Imagine a spiritual Odyssey that is also an autobiography, an action adventure, a love story and a political satire.”
Anthony Watts, poet
“Stairwell is triumphant and redemptive.”
C.J. Amazon Customer
“Riveting, horrific, terrifying . . . this pulled me in inexorably and forced me to keep reading, even through the pain. Dante would be proud.”
Amy Foreman
“As a Psychologist myself, what struck me reading Hellward was the truths Sale has observed. He describes the flaws, sins and temptations which we are all plagued by and what happens when we allow ourselves to be fully caught in their webs.”
Amazon Customer
“Extraordinary and powerful, and a demonstration of how traditional style and references can speak directly to contemporary concerns…”
David Orme, author
“You really feel the pain and then the joyous recovery.”
Sue Kerr, reader & book-club leader
“Speaks from the heart and soul to the heart and soul…”
Susan Jarvis Bryant, poet
The English Cantos 