The Hunt in the Forest

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In these poems of hunting and predation, Burnside explores our most deep-rooted and primeval pursuits: romantic love, memory, selfhood, grief, the recollection of the dead. Yet just as we seek, so are we sought out: at any moment we may slide into loss or be gathered in by some otherworldly light; at any moment, the angel of the annunciation may seek us out and demand some astonishing transformation. Even in the pursuit of love, or in the exercise of memory, we fall into snares and become entangled in veils; just as we are always on the point of discovery, so we are always a hairx2019;s-breadth away from being lost. Concerned with love and mourning, with what we discover and what remains hidden x96; with learning how to follow the trail through the forest and find the way home x96; above all, these poems are about the quest: knowing that whatever we bring back from the hunt, it is always hard-won and never fully our own.

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John Burnside has published five works of fiction and ten previous collections of poetry, including The Asylum Dance, which won the 2000 Whitbread Poetry Award. His Selected Poems was published in 2006, alongside his celebrated memoir, A Lie About My Father.