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Afterburn
Not yet published
Expected 28 Apr 26Here you are, on the balcony,
the sea serenading you,
the sun with its armful of light.
In Afterburn, his first collection since Shingle Street (2015), the renowned life writer 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 period of time before a past event is an idea that resonates through these poems – which themselves linger after reading – about memories and our human attempts to articulate, shape or contain them.
Revisiting past and alternate selves, the poet dives back into the unassuming stream of our dailiness, to see with new eyes the turning points in a lifetime's accidental course. What holds these wise, touching, joyful poems together are the small intimacies that bind us to others, under time’s lengthening ‘you moved too fast for me to catch you / and so did the years.’
Playful, charming, sometimes rakishly so, Afterburn nevertheless reveals an open, and vulnerable, heart.
the sea serenading you,
the sun with its armful of light.
In Afterburn, his first collection since Shingle Street (2015), the renowned life writer 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 period of time before a past event is an idea that resonates through these poems – which themselves linger after reading – about memories and our human attempts to articulate, shape or contain them.
Revisiting past and alternate selves, the poet dives back into the unassuming stream of our dailiness, to see with new eyes the turning points in a lifetime's accidental course. What holds these wise, touching, joyful poems together are the small intimacies that bind us to others, under time’s lengthening ‘you moved too fast for me to catch you / and so did the years.’
Playful, charming, sometimes rakishly so, Afterburn nevertheless reveals an open, and vulnerable, heart.
96 pages, Paperback
Expected publication April 28, 2026
2 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Blake Morrison
75 books65 followersBlake Morrison was educated at Nottingham University, McMaster University and University College, London. After working for the Times Literary Supplement, he went on to become literary editor of both The Observer and the Independent on Sunday before becoming a full-time writer in 1995.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, Blake has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. His best-known works are probably his two memoirs, "And When Did You Last See Your Father?" and "Things My Mother Never Told Me."
Since 2003, Blake has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. He lives in south London, with his wife and three children.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, Blake has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. His best-known works are probably his two memoirs, "And When Did You Last See Your Father?" and "Things My Mother Never Told Me."
Since 2003, Blake has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. He lives in south London, with his wife and three children.
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