John Burnside

John Burnside c_Lucas Burnside

John Burnside (born in 1955 in Dunfermline, Scotland) – his rich. award/winning work covers books of poetry, novels and autobiographical prose. He studied languages in Cambridge and has lived in Fife in Scotland since 1996.
Burnside stands beside Seamus Heaney as one of the major writers in English of the last 50 years. In his texts he captures in an unique way “the other life of things”. What he says about the song of the blackbird applies too to his poems, “they are more yolk than painted shell, more fruit than stone.” The “great spectacle of the real” is presented in them in powerful language. They follow the flight of spotted owls for beetles in hedgerows, describe the metallic smoke-grey of the sky and the membranes of stranded jellyfish. They are texts rooted in the world which feel committed to the here and now with their bee myths and hunting scenes. Not a single detail escapes the attention of this poet, be it raindrops on the window of a fish shop or the freckles on the back of a squinting plaice.

Publications (poetry collections):
The Hoop (Carcanet, 1988)
Common Knowledge (Secker and Warburg, London, 1991)
Feast Days (Secker and Warburg, London, 1992)
The Myth of the Twin (Jonathan Cape, London, 1994)
Swimming in the Flood (Jonathan Cape, London, 1995)
Penguin Modern Poets (Penguin, 1996)
A Normal Skin (Jonathan Cape, London, 1997)
The Asylum Dance (Jonathan Cape, London, 2000)
The Light Trap (Jonathan Cape, London, 2002)
A Poet's Polemic (2003)
The Good Neighbour (Jonathan Cape, 2005)
Selected Poems (Jonathan Cape, 2006)
Gift Songs (Jonathan Cape, 2007)
The Hunt in the Forest (Jonathan Cape, 2009)
Black Cat Bone (Jonathan Cape, 2011)
All one breath (Jonathan Cape 2014)