by Elizabeth Burns
\nISBN 978-1-910437-38-4<\/p>\n
SOLD OUT<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe take what light we can to keep us through the night.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Shortly before she died in 2015, Elizabeth Burns asked two poet-friends to put together the new collection of poems she would not have time to work on herself. Wayleave is proud to be able publish the result: Lightkeepers<\/em>, edited by Gerrie Fellows and Jane Routh.<\/p>\n Admirers of Elizabeth\u2019s writing will recognise Lightkeepers<\/em> touches on those central themes Elizabeth pursued throughout the whole of her writing life, \u2018making what was invisible, visible through words and images\u2019. The poems range from delicately poised moments of home life through music and literature and art (particularly of and by women), to historical events and the natural world. Tender and precise, vigorous and lucid, Elizabeth\u2019s writing moves confidently into new condensed forms and, ultimately, celebration.<\/p>\n “An exceptionally gifted writer” – The Scotsman<\/em><\/p>\n “Elizabeth Burns\u2019 work deserves to be read, celebrated and remembered for the intensity of its thought and feeling and its spirituality, which in her later work becomes visionary. She is an exceptional poet.” – Myra Schneider<\/p>\n “The overriding sense I have of these poems is as givers and bringers of light … something of her spirit is contained in what she has created.” – Richie McCaffery on Clay<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBurns lets her language make connections, lightly and with a sure touch; she delights in movement, the merging of the real and the spiritual, and the visible containing the invisible.\u201d \u00a0D A Prince, The North<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026a fine, meticulously unfussy poet of crystal-clear perceptiveness.\u201d \u00a0Glyn Pursglove, Acumen<\/p>\n \u201cHer last poems are brimful of her characteristically scrupulous compressed lyric composure. In every line she discerns where the spirit visits and is welcomed into ordinary places, a recovery room, a kitchen, an old cupboard.\u201d Penelope Shuttle<\/p>\n Designed and typeset by Gerry Cambridge with a cover image by Elizabeth\u2019s friend Jane Rushton, Wayleave has published Lightkeepers<\/em> with a special Finally, I\u2019m done with the phone calls and everything else
\nthread – sewn binding on Munken 100gsm paper with coloured endpapers.<\/p>\n
\nListening to Bach\u2019s B Minor Mass in the kitchen<\/h4>\n
\nand when I switch on the radio it feels like lying in salt water \u2013
\nall I need to do is breathe: Bach will keep me afloat.
\nI\u2019m mixing yeast into flour, making rolls for my daughter\u2019s
\nbirthday breakfast in the morning, kneading and kneading
\nthe dough then setting it to rise; arranging in a glass
\nthe last of the tiny pink roses with a sprig of green,
\nfinding the blue candles and ironing the tablecloth,
\nthe one my granny embroidered, sweeping the floor,
\nthinking about the hot August night of the birth,
\nand about the people we met on Westray last week,
\nand the presents I still need to wrap, and Bach himself
\nwho is like a mountain covered in wildflowers,
\nand the singers in the Albert Hall who, the conductor says,
\nget close to godliness through this performance;
\nand I\u2019m wondering, as all those voices fill my kitchen
\nwith the Mass, if this is what he means: the sense
\nof time and place dissolving, so what divides us
\nfrom the past and elsewhere, and from each other,
\nfalls away, and everything\u2019s connected and we are all
\ndrops of water in this enormous breaking wave.<\/p>\n
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