Book description
Lucid, tender, and strangely troubling, the poems in The Asylum
Dance - which won the Whitbread Prize for Poetry - are hymns to
the tension between the sanctuary of home and the lure of escape. This
is territory that Burnside has made his own: a domestic world threaded
through with myth and longing, beyond which lies a no man's land - the
'somewhere in between' - of dusk or dawn, of mists or sudden light,
where the epiphanies are.
Using the framework of four long poems, 'Ports', 'Settlements',
'Fields' and 'Roads', the poet balances presence with absence; we are
shown the homing instinct - felt in the blood and marrow - as a pull
to refuge, simplicity, and a safe haven, while at the same time
hearing the siren call from the world beyond: the thrilling expectancy
of fairground or dancehall, the possibilities of the open road. With a
confident open line and complete command of the language, John
Burnside writes with grace, agility and profound philosophical
purpose, confirming his position in the front rank of contemporary poetry.
John Burnside has published seven works of fiction and eleven works
of poetry, including
The Asylum Ward
, which won the 2000 Whitbread Poetry Award. His latest collection,
Black Cat Bone
, won the TS Eliot Prize in 2012. His
Selected Poems
was published in 2006, alongside his memoir,
A Lie About My Father
, which was the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and the Scottish Arts
Council Non-Fiction Book of the Year. The second volume of his memoir,
Waking Up In Toytown
, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2010.
A Summer of Drowning
was shortlisted for the 2011 Costa Novel Award.
