Croft Woods

Richard Burns' long chant-poem 'Tree' (1981) celebrated the elemental energies and forces of the green world. In 'Tree', Burns' commitment to conservation was underpinned by motifs from the Cabbala and by the Herakleitan principle: As above, so below.

In Croft Woods (1999), Burns once more explores the world of plants, again following the perspectives and cosmic metaphors of heights and depths. Here, the poem's fabric is marked and enriched by the revealed experience of personal crisis. The setting is 'the forest, mother of cathedrals', where the plants are connected with the souls of the dead, and 'colloquies of oxygen and carbon / counterpoint chants of plants and breaths of men.'

In Croft Woods, the author acknowledges the strong influence of the writings of James Hillman, especially The Soul and the Underworld. This is the first edition, a chapbook of 16 pages.