John Burnside
John Burnside
John Burnsideis a Scottish writer, born in Dunfermline. He is one of only two poetsto have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same book...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth19 March 1955
builds finished head hold lines longer mind piece poem quite register several soon time until work written
The poem builds in my mind and sits there, as if in a register, until the poem, or a piece of a longer poem, is finished enough to write down. I can hold several lines in my head for quite some time, but as soon as they are written down, the register clears, as it were, and I have to work with what is on the paper.
mistrust suspect took
Usually, I would mistrust a book if it took that long to write. Usually, if it isn't done in two years, I suspect there's something wrong and throw it away.
range textures tonal
The fabric of a garden is determined as much by its textures as by its tonal range and architectural flair.
cliffs constantly crumbling decay highest landscape nova park provincial red sandy shore slide slowly soft tides trees unlike wash
There is a red sandy beach in the Minas Basin in Nova Scotia that is unlike any other shore landscape I have ever seen. The world's highest tides wash its shores, and the soft cliffs of Blomidon Provincial Park are constantly crumbling away; whole trees will occasionally slide down to the sea to decay slowly in the wind and brine.
across almost house pleasure stumbling
The only pleasure in redecorating or moving house comes from stumbling across books that I'd almost forgotten I owned.
finest offers robin
My editor, Robin Robertson, is one of this country's finest poets, so I listen to him when he offers advice.
avenue burns coal felt local version
For a boy of ten, used to the coal bings and rust-coloured burns of Cowdenbeath, the fields and woodland of Kingswood, with its overgrown but stately avenue of copper-barked sequoias, felt like a local version of paradise.
painted
Many of the birds Audubon painted are now extinct, and still we go on killing them, more or less casually, with our pesticides and wires and machinery.