For a bird, especially for the more musically inventive, song is the defining characteristic, the primary way by which it knows itself and is known by others. To lose its species song is to lose not just its identity but… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
In many traditions, hawks are sacred: Apollo's messengers for the Greeks, sun symbols for the ancient Egyptians and, in the case of the Lakota… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
The poem builds in my mind and sits there, as if in a register, until the poem, or a piece of a longer poem,… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
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… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
This is a truth that should be repeated like a mantra: to have any chance of a ful - filling life, we require not… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
My father was one of those men who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
“There are days when that dark face is something I can think of as a friend – a primal energy that carries me forward… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
I remember how, back in the 1980s, the Scottish Flow Country became an object of bemused controversy as rich celebrities and businessmen from south… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
The great pleasure that comes from reading poets such as Mark Doty and Marianne Moore is the realisation that the essential virtues - compassion,… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
I remember a nightfall from childhood, far from home and off the known track: I'd been walking with some older boys, but they ran… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
One day I was talking about what I was going to do next, and just found myself announcing it: 'I'm going to write a… — John Burnside Copy Share Image
'The Asylum Dance' was written after I'd moved back to Scotland and was a response to moving to my old home area of Fife. — John Burnside Copy Share Image
![“My father was one of those men who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. [Burnside, p. 27]” quote by John Burnside](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/672/john-burnside-8167_break_my-father-was-one-of-those-men-who-sit-i_167810.jpg)
