The Empire of Forgetting by John Burnside
Poetry Book Society Recommendation Autumn 2025
Anna Gurton-Wachter and in the bursting of

and in the bursting of balloons

religion and family

and long lost letters

They reveal the poet at the height of her creative powers

the undigested cake and eat it of daily life

The Empire of Forgetting by John Burnside<br><b>Poetry Book Society Recommendation Autumn 2025</b><br> Anna Gurton-Wachter and in the bursting ofJohn Burnside's last collection of new poems gathers around a single theme "mortality "and draws on his faltering health and earlier glances with death, creating a powerfully moving exploration of memory, forgetting and the seven ages. Here, as always, there is a clear eyed curiosity; a sense of wonder at the beleaguered natural world and its endless mutability "its hidden beauty, often suddenly disclosed "and a deep faith in its old gods. Burnside