Description
Mark Burnhope's poems present a generous but moral quizzing of the world. Peering out over disability, faith and the host of prejudices that spring from such ground, they negotiate a path through lyricism and music, didacticism and narrative, comedy and confession, slang and slur in their search for a voice with which to speak. They visit town and sea, husband and wife and monuments to grief built of snow, steel, stone. They take us to a hydrotherapy session, a talking tree and an outcast crew including Pinocchio, Queequeg and Quasimodo. But at their heart, there is great warmth. Burnhope asks uncomfortable questions of the rhyme or reason for loss and healing, even as he challenges received perceptions of disabled life with wit, verve and an inclusive imagination.
Affectionate, hip but not snooty, visionary and anti-square. -- Ira Lightman Mark Burnhope draws on fairytale and transformation to spin his own techno-mythology in this quirky and intelligent debut. -- Angela Topping This debut pamphlet introduces a serious and playful, tender and ironic, strong and coherent new voice. A definite talent to watch. -- Andrew Philip Imagine Zaccheus turning tables at the Internet Cafe, Paul turning back into Saul, confuse dying with flying, imagine a wheelchair recast in a pastoral landscape. Burnhope speaks movingly of human weakness and physical frailty, of strength and lightness of spirit -- Helen Ivory Mark Burnhope's work is concerned with the physical - how a town is a physical place, how we live in a world of machines, our bodies among them. Many of the poems address disability, not only in the narrow sense our culture understands it but also in the wider sense that our physicality acts as a pathetic curb on the life of the spirit. The poems (which are machines themselves, we've been told) shake with the joy and frustration of living. -- Tony Williams
About the Author
Mark Burnhope was born in 1982 and studied at London School of Theology before completing an MA in Creative Writing at Brunel University. His work has appeared in a variety of print and online publications. He currently lives and writes in Bournemouth, Dorset with his partner, four stepchildren, two geckos and a greyhound. This is his first book of poetry.
Book Information
ISBN 9781844718733
Author Mark Burnhope
Page Count 44
Imprint Salt Publishing
Publisher Salt Publishing
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 3mm
