The Hunt in the Forest
2009
First Published
3.89
Average Rating
64
Number of Pages
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 hair’s-breadth away from being lost. Concerned with love and mourning, with what we discover and what remains hidden – with learning how to follow the trail through the forest and find the way home – 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.
Avg Rating
3.89
Number of Ratings
62
5 STARS
21%
4 STARS
52%
3 STARS
23%
2 STARS
5%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
John Burnside
Author · 28 books
John Burnside is the author of nine collections of poetry and five works of fiction. Burnside has achieved wide critical acclaim, winning the Whitbread Poetry Award in 2000 for The Asylum Dance which was also shortlisted for the Forward and T.S. Eliot prizes. Born in Scotland, he moved away in 1965, returning to settle there in 1995. In the intervening period he worked as a factory hand, a labourer, a gardener and, for ten years, as a computer systems designer. He now lives in Fife with his wife and children and teaches Creative Writing, Literature and Ecology courses at the University of St. Andrews. [Author photo © Norman McBeath]
