Gift Songs

If genius is operating anywhere in English poetry at present, I feel it is here, in Burnside’s singular music – Adam Thorpe * Observer *I love the way John Burnside looks at the world. He doesn’t just look: he watches. He sees into secret spaces that lie somewhere between the hidden and the revealed… [He] crafts a poetry as precise in its detail, as subtle in its perceptions, as respectful in its attentions as the blade of a brain surgeon’s scalpel – Rachel Campbell-Johnston * The Times *A stunningly good writer of poetry and fiction – Christina Patterson * Independent *The new appearance of a collection of John Burnside’s poems is now an event… His has become a voice we rely on; he is a shaman-cum-seer who finds a lucid magic in the ordinary, a life of implication in passing moments, an X-ray truth, an inner light in our daily lives – Tom Adair * Scotland on Sunday *Burnside has a stillness and emotional restraint, a respect for the observer and observed alike which is serious, exemplary and rare * Times Literary Supplement *One of the most outstandingly gifted poets in Britain. He, like one of his subjects, is ‘tuned into the plainsong of the stars – Catherine Lockerbie * Scotsman *

John Burnside was among the most acclaimed writers of his generation. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs won numerous awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial, Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and, in 2023, he received the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime’s achievement in literature. In 2011 Black Cat Bone won both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prizes for poetry. He died in 2024.

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