Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Back matter Notes. Further Reading. Back matter Index. For me, poetry is both the account of, and the map by which I navigate my path on this journey and, as such, is an ecological discipline of the richest and subtlest kind.
There are occasional glimpses of angels and ghosts, but these are figures which keep their distance, and neither protect nor haunt; rather, they suggest other worlds, other ways of being, other realms of perception. Authority and ownership — in the early poems represented by male violence against women, in the later work by money and property — are as provisional as anything else, as ultimately illusory. Underpinning his writing is the importance of relationships, especially those related to the notions of community and of home — not so much friendship as the intimacy of marriage and family, and the slightly distant and disinterested yet supportive ties of neighbourliness.
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Index Text References About the author. Keywords: poetry , 20th century , environment , American politics , American dream , hope , animals. Full text PDF Send by e-mail. Zoom Original jpeg, 38k.
References Electronic reference Wayne E. About the author Wayne E. Top of page. Follow us RSS feed. The general tone — robustly intelligent, often emotionally astute and sometimes funny — makes the Spinoza references seem not just accessible but necessary. This is a highly idiosyncratic experiment and much less Anglocentric than one might have expected. Meanwhile, it gives us intimate glimpses of work we may only have known of, rather than truly known.
It proceeds with such loping grandeur and is so tight-lipped about its themes that it takes a while for the realisation to dawn that it is nothing short of an American epic. That, however, is what Burnside has written: a drifty, dreamy, dramatic epic.
Yet, instead of being artless, it creates satisfying, haunting wholes. It is also daring [and] triumphantly evocative. He is interested in the stories that America tells about itself and, in particular, the stories that are left out of official narratives — the stories of those who dissent in a century drunk on violence… The way that Burnside layers these stories is masterful , and becomes a meditation on storytelling itself.
John Burnside is. In these remarkable stories, John Burnside takes us into the lives of men and women trapped in marriage, ensnared by drink, diminished by disappointment; all kinds of women, all kinds of men — lonely, unfaithful, dying — driving empty roads at night.
These exquisitely written pieces, each weighted so perfectly, opens up the whole wound of a life in one moment — and each of these twelve short stories carries the freight and density of a great novel. A young girl, Liv, lives with her mother on a remote island in the Arctic Circle. Her only friend is an old man who beguiles her with tales of trolls, mermaids, and the huldra, a wild spirit who appears as an irresistably beautiful girl, to tempt young men to danger and death.
Then two boys drown within weeks of each other under mysterious circumstances, in the still, moonlit waters off the shores of Liv's home. The children of Innertown exist in a state of suspended terror. Every year or so, a boy from their school disappears, vanishing into the wasteland of the old chemical plant. Nobody knows where these boys go, or whether they are alive or dead, and without evidence the authorities claim they are simply runaways. The town policeman, Morrison, knows otherwise.
He was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder, and he believes all the boys have been killed. Though he is seriously compromised, he would still like to find out the killer's identity. The local children also want to know and, in their fear and frustration, they turn on Rivers, a sad fantasist and suspected paedophile living alone at the edge of the wasteland. Trapped and frightened, one of the boys, Leonard, tries to escape, taking refuge in the poisoned ruins of the old plant; there he finds another boy, who might be the missing Liam and might be a figment of his imagination.
With his help, Leonard comes to understand the policeman's involvement, and exacts the necessary revenge - before following Liam into the Glister: possibly a disused chemical weapons facility, possibly a passage to the outer world. A terrifying exploration of loss and the violence that pools under the surface of the everyday, Glister is an exquisitely written, darkly imagined novel. Once, on a winter's night many years ago, after a heavy snow, the devil passed through the Scottish fishing town of Coldhaven, leaving a trail of dark hoofprints across the streets and roofs of the sleeping town.
Michael Gardiner has lived in Coldhaven all his life, but still feels like an outsider, a blow-in. When Moira Birnie decides that her abusive husband is the devil and then kills herself and her two young sons, a terrible chain of events begins.
Michael's infatuation with Moira's teenage daughter takes him on a journey towards a defined fate, where he is forced to face his present and then, finally, his past Corby, the industrial new town built around a vast steel works, draws many to the fires of its furnaces - in the hope of steady work, a better house, a fresh start.
Alienated, intelligent and curious, they form a strong and lasting bond: two teenage boys finding their feet in a foreign place. But violence hangs in the Corby air like the ash and the stench from the steel works, and when it comes down it is sudden and lethal - with repercussions that will last a lifetime.
Living Nowhere is a story of friendship and loss - a resonant, thrilling book that carries at its core a beautiful and terrible secret. During the spring and summer of , a rapist stalked the streets of Cambridge, attacking young, single women in their bed-sits and flats and subjecting them to horrifying and increasingly violent assaults.
For several months the city endured a climate of fear and suspicion, where the old assumptions about sexual relations and civic decency fell into question, and no male could be taken at face value. These events form the background to The Locust Room, in which a young photographer is forced by circumstances to examine his relations with women, with other men and with his family at home.
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