Driftwork

Selected Poems

The definitive selection of John Burnside's extraordinary and vibrant poems, taken from across decades but always stirring, curious, alert to the natural world and the people in it

'It’s impossible not to love the world more when reading Burnside' GUARDIAN

Over thirty-five years and seventeen collections, John Burnside built a body of poetry that was consistently luminous, original and profound, always in thrall to the glamourie – a magical, fleeting enchantment – always in search of settlement, harmony and grace.

His work is both intimately personal and universal, often moving through stages of vulnerability, turbulence, terror, and desire, to artistic positions that are sensitive and highly alert. He risked much for his art and its integrity, in order to arrive at a new and unique understanding of beauty and truth – and to offer a fresh angle from which to view the world, through nature, myth, and magic. For him, every poem was an alchemical transformation, a metamorphosis, an epiphany.

'Among the best writers of his generation, fully voiced and perfectly pitched' Andrew O'Hagan

'A master of language' Hilary Mantel

'Burnside's sharp, suturing language allows us to know the world as it is: ragged and broken, yet full of impossibly fragile beauty' Rebecca Tamás

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