The Asylum Dance
by John Burnside
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A Whitbread Prize-winning collection of poems that are 'lyrical, tough, often oddly sinister... and can up-end your mood like a drug or a dream' (Gordon Burn, Independent). Lucid, tender, and strangely troubling, the poems in The Asylum Dance - which won the Whitbread Prize for Poetry - are hymns to the tension between the sanctuary of home and the lure of escape. This is territory that Burnside has made his own- a domestic world threaded through with myth and longing, beyond which lies a no show more man's land - the 'somewhere in between' - of dusk or dawn, of mists or sudden light, where the epiphanies are. Using the framework of four long poems, 'Ports', 'Settlements', 'Fields' and 'Roads', the poet balances presence with absence; we are shown the homing instinct - felt in the blood and marrow - as a pull to refuge, simplicity, and a safe haven, while at the same time hearing the siren call from the world beyond- the thrilling expectancy of fairground or dancehall, the possibilities of the open road. With a confident open line and complete command of the language, John Burnside writes with grace, agility and profound philosophical purpose, confirming his position in the front rank of contemporary poetry. show lessTags
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Author Information
56+ Works 1,926 Members
John Burnside is a poet, novelist, and memoirist whose many books include Still Life with Feeding Snake and On Henry Miller (Princeton). He is professor of English at the University of St Andrews and a regular contributor to the London Review of Books.
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Asylum Dance
- Dedication
- for Robin Robertson
- First words
- PORTS
‘Pas de port. Ports inconnus.’
Henri Michaux
I HAVEN
Our dwelling place:
the light above the firth
shipping forecasts
theorems
his choice of a single word to describe
the gun-metal grey of the sky
as the gulls
flicker between the roofs
on Tolbooth Wynd. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
forgive me
being not the man I seem
not lost or found
but somewhere in between.
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- Members
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- Popularity
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- Rating
- (4.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 1
