John Burnside’s most recent novel, A Summer of Drowning, is set in the Arctic Circle. Black Cat Bone just won the T.S. Eliot prize.
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Vol. 31 No. 16 · 27 August 2009
From John Burnside
In his excellent piece about Frederick Seidel, Michael Robbins claims that ‘only Stevens and Ashbery, among American poets, have settled into old age with comparably candy-coloured gifts intact’ (LRB, 6 August). While not altogether sure what constitutes ‘candy-coloured’ in this instance, I have to protest. Charles Wright (born in 1935) is one year older than Seidel; Charles Simic (1938) a mere two years younger. Both continue to publish work that is at least as vital, challenging and possibly just as candy-coloured as that of the author of Ooga-Booga.
John Burnside
St Andrews