Afterburn by Blake Morrison

Afterburn by Blake Morrison

'Lucid, tender and humane . . . One of the most formally agile and compassionate poets of our age’ Fiona Benson

Here you are, on the balcony,
the sea serenading you,
the sun with its armful of light.

In Afterburn, Blake Morrison returns to poetry, his first calling, to offers scenes from his own life and the lives of others. In psychology, 'afterburn' refers to the time before a past event is assimilated – an idea that resonates through these poems (which themselves linger after reading) about memory and our attempts to articulate, shape or contain it.

Throughout the collection, not least in two extraordinary sequences – one about his sister, the other about Elizabeth Bishop – the poet sees with new eyes the turning points in a life's accidental course. What holds his wise, touching, melancholy yet joyful poems together are the small intimacies that bind us to others, under time’s lengthening shadow: ‘you moved too fast for me to catch you / and so did the years.’

Playful and charming, sometimes rakishly so, Afterburn nevertheless reveals an open, and vulnerable, heart.

***

'Distils the insights of a seasoned memoirist into images that linger long after the final page' Julia Copus
'A master of the sonnet . . . I’m taking Afterburn to my desert island' Hugo Williams

Born in Skipton, Yorkshire, Blake Morrison is the author of bestselling memoirs, And When Did You Last See Your Father? (winner of the J.R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography and the Esquire Award for Non-Fiction) and Things My Mother Never Told Me. His poetry collections include Dark Glasses, which won the Dylan Thomas and Somerset Maugham prizes, Pendle Witches, which was illustrated by Paula Rego, and Shingle Street. He is also a novelist, critic, journalist and librettist. He lives in South London.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781784746032
ISBN 10	1784746037
Title	Afterburn
Author	Blake Morrison
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2026-01-29
Number of pages	80
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.