A Rival
by John Burnside
Sometimes, when I watch you through the glass,
fixing your make-up, or twisting your hair in a plait,
I catch a passing glimpse of someone new,
someone I might have loved had we ever met
and, now that we’ve come this far, I must admit
that, given the choice, I’d rather her than you:
this inward self a camera might steal,
the soul that shatters when a mirror breaks
and, so they say, takes seven years to heal.
Sometimes I think if she and I were free,
she’d tell me secrets you could never share;
though, now I come to think of it, I swear
I’ve caught her giving you such private looks
as lovers do, when no one else can see
and then I’ve turned away, for all our sakes,
because it’s clear she’d rather you than me.
From All One Breath. Reproduced with kind permission from Cape Poetry.
Forward Prizes for Poetry
Shortlisted for Best Collection 2014
All One Breath
John Burnside
About John Burnside
John Burnside (b. 1955 Dunfermline) describes his Catholic childhood in Corby as solitary: ‘Reading poetry was probably the only real education I had in anything.’ Poetry, he says, is ‘a defence of care over the language, its richness, its subtleties, its possibilities’. He believes that ‘if we keep reading poetry, and so educating ourselves in metaphor, we can see through and scoff at the deceptive myths peddled by certain politicians and salespeople.’
He became a writer while working as a software engineer. His novels, memoirs and poems have won many awards and his 2011 collection Black Cat Bone won both the Forward Prize and the T S Eliot Prize.
All One Breath, his thirteenth poetry collection, was inspired by Ecclesiastes: ‘For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts… yea, they have all one breath.’ Our kinship with all living things is a matter, he maintains, for awe.
His advice to would-be poets: ‘Do it for love. Listen to music. Read the classics, read your contemporaries, get advice from other readers, read in translation. Read, read, read.’
Forward Prizes History:
- 2011 Forward Prizes for Best Collection, Winner for Black Cat (Cape)
- 2007 Forward Prizes for Best Collection, shortlisted for Gift Songs (Cape)
- 2005 Forward Prizes for Best Collection, shortlisted for The Good Neighbour (Cape Poetry)
- 2000 Forward Prizes for Best Collection, shortlisted for The Asylum Dance (Cape Poetry)
