ELIZABETH BURNS, 1957-2015
 

2016: See Wayleave Press website for more about Elizabeth Burns, her pamphlets, and her collection Lightkeepers (2016, ed. Gerrie Fellows and Jane Routh). At 3rd September 2019, the Elizabeth Burns website is now at: www.elizabethburnspoetry.com

Elizabeth Burns’ fourth collection of poetry is Held (Polygon, 2010). Her previous collections are Ophelia (Polygon, 1991), which was shortlisted for a Saltire First Book Award, The Gift of Light (diehard, 2000) and The Lantern Bearers (Shoestring, 2007). She has also published several pamphlets, four with Galdragon Press, including The Shortest Days which won the inaugural Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlets in 2009. Her most recent pamphlets are A Scarlet Thread (2014) and Clay (2015), both from Wayleave Press.
 
Her poetry has also appeared in many anthologies including The book of Hopes and Dreams (bluechrome, 2006), Images of Women (Second Light / Arrowhead, 2006), Lancaster Litfest’s digital anthology, Watermark (Flax Books, 2007) and Yesterday’s Music Today (KFS Press, 2015).
 
In 2013, she was Manchester Cathedral’s Poet of the Year, and she won the BBC Radio 3 Proms Poetry Competition in 2012.
 
Having spent much of her life in Scotland, Elizabeth moved to Lancaster where she raised a family and taught creative writing.
 
Review Comments:
 

‘Elizabeth Burns’s poems have an engaging combination of a delicate touch and crisp, often quirky images.’

Robin Bell, Books in Scotland

‘Her perception of the world is both precise and tender.’

Dorothy McMillan, Glasgow Herald

‘Her forceful, emotional rhythms are counterpointed by a cool intellect, but her eye is never dispassionate, she is always involved, always at the centre of these poems. Burns writes with a painterly richness.’

Rose Flint, Poetry Wales