The Empire of Forgetting
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Summary
'A master of language' HILARY MANTEL
John Burnside’s last collection of new poems gathers around a single theme – mortality – and draws on his faltering health and earlier glances with death, creating a powerfully moving exploration of memory, forgetting and the seven ages.
Here, as always, there is a clear-eyed curiosity; a sense of wonder at the beleaguered natural world and its endless mutability – its hidden beauty, often suddenly disclosed – and a deep faith in its old gods. Burnside was always as much a spirit-guide as a poet, and here, in the Empire of Forgetting, we are never far from a fresh alertness to the world, to epiphany – a sudden, spiritual manifestation. There is a sense, too, in these last poems, of a man having found a ‘dwelling place’ – a sense of rest and peace and settlement with the world. A state of grace.
'Among the best writers of his generation, fully voiced and perfectly pitched… He now leaves behind a body of work that will only grow stronger as new generations discover it’ ANDREW O'HAGAN
‘A titan of literature…. His passing leaves a gap not only in our literature, but in our ability to exist in the world. He increased the possible ways of our being' KATHLEEN JAMIE
John Burnside’s last collection of new poems gathers around a single theme – mortality – and draws on his faltering health and earlier glances with death, creating a powerfully moving exploration of memory, forgetting and the seven ages.
Here, as always, there is a clear-eyed curiosity; a sense of wonder at the beleaguered natural world and its endless mutability – its hidden beauty, often suddenly disclosed – and a deep faith in its old gods. Burnside was always as much a spirit-guide as a poet, and here, in the Empire of Forgetting, we are never far from a fresh alertness to the world, to epiphany – a sudden, spiritual manifestation. There is a sense, too, in these last poems, of a man having found a ‘dwelling place’ – a sense of rest and peace and settlement with the world. A state of grace.
'Among the best writers of his generation, fully voiced and perfectly pitched… He now leaves behind a body of work that will only grow stronger as new generations discover it’ ANDREW O'HAGAN
‘A titan of literature…. His passing leaves a gap not only in our literature, but in our ability to exist in the world. He increased the possible ways of our being' KATHLEEN JAMIE
