A miracle of pattern and variation, sustained on so high a pitch that it is impossible to consider one poem better than another. A blazing black unity.
A true European poet, who, through deep understanding of cultural identity, voices universal concerns. His voice is one of exceptional quality in contemporary poetry."
Times Educational Supplement
A homage to Seferis which has independent life.
Seferis the man and the poet is indeed a strong presence in Black Light, but in a Greece which Burns knows and loves, and which his poems bring to life . . . Black Light is the work of an English poet whose imaginative and intellectual understanding of archetypes enables him to transcend the personal. Richard Burns' tribute to the Greek poetic tradition is also an Anglo-Hellenic gift to modern English poetry . . . Black Light is an important sequence, because of the passionate exploration in which it lives the mystery."
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PETER PHILLIPS, Poetry Wales
This is a very considerable achievement by Richard Burns ... Burns' unfailing discerning ear and his skill in a variety of forms means that he always re-enacts or re-creates ... The rich variety is subtly achieved and depends upon the strategic choice and placing of the precise word and image.
Printer's Pie 4
Burns gives of his best here, the poems being works of superb craftsmanship... These poems are for savouring, as one would a fine port, to sit and relax, letting the words pour out towards and into the soul.