History - John Burnside

Structure:

• Visibly looks like towers

  • Shows thoughts as disjointed

• Lyric poem

  • Consisting of only three sentences which helps establish the tone

  • With such long, complex syntax, our attention is drawn naturally towards the full stop.

  • The word that proceeds them pause therefore given emphasis.

  • This full stop, this pause, is used to great effect at the very end of the poem, the syntax is manipulated cleverly as the long sentence builds towards the powerful concluding couplet, which beautifully encapsulates the poems ideas:

    • ‘patient; afraid; but still, through everything

    • attentive to the irredeemable’

• Free Verse

  • The poem is written in free verse, meaning it lacks a consistent rhyme scheme or meter.

  • This creates a conversational, meditative tone that suits the introspective and observational nature of the poem.

  • This lack of rhyme and meter allows Burnside to reflect the uncertainty, disorientation, and emotional realism that the poem explores—especially in the wake of events like 9/11, which haunt the backdrop of the poem. The unstructured form mirrors the sense of a world that feels fragile and unpredictable.

• Long, flowing sentences

  • Burnside often uses long, flowing sentences that stretch across multiple lines.

  • These enjambed lines mirror the way thoughts meander and reflect the uncertainty or complexity of memory and history.

  • Also, mirrors/sounds like internal thoughts.

• Fragmentation and juxtaposition

  • The poem moves between different planes: the immediate (playing with his son on the beach) and the global (references to war and politics).

  • This juxtaposition of the personal and the historical underscores the theme of how individuals live within broader historical narratives.

• Lack of Stanza breaks

  • “History” is written in one continuous block of text, without stanza divisions.

  • This uninterrupted form reflects the ongoing nature of time and history, and perhaps the overwhelming or inescapable quality of global events.

• Shifting perspective

  • The poem shifts between external observation (describing the beach, the sea, his son) and internal reflection (his fears, memories, questions about the future).

  • This structural duality allows Burnside to explore how history impacts both the outer world and the inner self.

• Temporal fluiditiy

  • There’s a blurring of past, present, and future, with references to past events, present actions, and future uncertainties.

  • This temporal movement mirrors how “history” is not fixed but constantly influencing and being reinterpreted in the present.

Zooming in

• ‘At times I think what makes us who we are is neither kinship nor our given states but something lost between the world we own’

  • Iambic pentameter

  • Shift in tense, tragedy calls for a change in perspective.