Asylum Dance - Couverture souple

John Burnside's seventh poetry collection, The Asylum Dance, won the Whitbread Poetry Award and was shortlisted for both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prize.

Lucid, tender, and strangely troubling, the poems in The Asylum Dance 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 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 a dancehall, the possibilities of the open road. With a confident open line and command of the language, John Burnside writes with grace, agility and profound philosophical purpose, confirming his position in the front rank of contemporary poetry.

John Burnside is amongst the most acclaimed writers of his generation. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs have won numerous awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Whitbread Poetry Award, the Encore Award and the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. In 2011 he became only the second person to win both the Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes for poetry for the same book, Black Cat Bone. In 2015 he was a judge for the Man Booker Prize. He is a Professor in the School of English at St Andrews University.