John Burnside

[clive]

This is the place to make recommendations, isn't it? Well, recently, I just can't get enough of John Burnside. His stuff is published by Cape Poetry and he really is something else!

THE OLD GODS

Now they are condemned
to live in cracks,
in bubbles of plaster and rust,
and spiders' webs
behind the furniture:

speaking a derelict language
to empty space,
sealed with the vapour
in bottles, closed in the blown
robins' eggs
in some abandoned loft.

Each has its given power.
Each has its hearth, its secret,
its local name,
and each has its way of learning
the skill of return,
the science of bleeding through, when anger or fear
is fuzzing the surface,
making us dizzy or whole.

From "Swimming in the Flood" John Burnside.

[Hugh McMillan]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by clive:
[B]This is the place to make recommendations, isn't it? Well, recently, I just can't get enough of John Burnside. His stuff is published by Cape Poetry and he really is something else!


Another Scottish success story.

[clive]

Yes, what IS it about Scotland that it produces such fine poets? John Burnside, Douglas Dunn, Kirkpatrick Dobie, Gavin Ewart ... I could go on!

[Hilary]

Nothing else to do

hee hee hee

(apart from admiring the fantastic scenery and trying to work out what people are saying....)

Lang may yer..... etc etc etc
Hilary

[Hugh McMillan]

Originally posted by clive:
Yes, what IS it about Scotland that it produces such fine poets? John Burnside, Douglas Dunn, Kirkpatrick Dobie, Gavin Ewart ... I could go on!


Interesting you mention Kirkpatrick Dobie, from Dumfries. Where did you see his stuff? Was it in the Peterloo Book?

[clive]

I first saw his stuff in The Dark Horse, then I got the Peterloo book out of the Poetry Library. His poem, "Dumfries" is one of my favourites.

",,,"Hell is a city very like Seville"
the poet says,
and might have added that they never knew
who only knew Seville
and slept in peace
as in Dumfries."

Marvelous!

Clive