Burns, Jim
BURNS, Jim
Nationality: British. Born: Preston, Lancashire, 19 February 1936. Education: Attended local schools and Bolton Institute of Technology, Lancashire, B.A. (honors) 1980. Military Service: British Army, 1954–57. Family: Married in 1958 (divorced 1973); two sons. Career: Worked in mills, offices, and factories, 1952–64. Editor, Move magazine, 1964–68, and Palantir, 1976–83, both Preston, and jazz editor, Beat Scene, since 1992. Since 1964 regular contributor, Tribune and Ambit, both London; since 1983 part-time tutor in adult education colleges; since 1990 part-time tutor for Manchester University extra-mural department. Address: 11 Gatley Green, Gatley, Cheadle, Cheshire SK8 4NF, England.
Publications
Poetry
Some Poems. New York, Crank, 1965.
Some More Poems. Cambridge, R Books, 1966.
My Sad Story and Other Poems. Chatham, Kent, New Voice, 1967.
The Store of Things. Manchester, Phoenix Pamphlet Poets Press, 1969.
A Single Flower. St. Brelade, Jersey, Channel Islands, Andium Press, 1972.
Leben in Preston. Cologne, Palmenpresse, 1973.
Easter in Stockport. Sheffield, Rivelin Press, 1975.
Fred Engels in Woolworths. London, Oasis, 1975.
Playing It Cool. Swansea Galloping Dog Press, 1976.
The Goldfish Speaks from Beyond the Grave. London, Salamander Imprint, 1976.
Catullus in Preston. Cardiff, Cameo Club Alley Press, 1979.
Notes from a Greasy Spoon. Cardiff, University College, 1980.
Internal Memorandum. Bradford, Yorkshire, Rivelin Press, 1982.
The Real World. Cowling, Yorkshire, Purple Heather, 1986.
Out of the Past: Selected Poems 1961–1986. Hungerford, Berkshire, Rivelin Grapheme Press, 1987.
Poems for Tribune. Huddersfield, Yorkshire, Wide Skirt Press, 1988.
The Gift. Bradford, Yorkshire, Redbeck Press, 1989.
Confessions of an Old Believer. Bradford, Yorkshire, Redbeck Press, 1996.
As Good a Reason As Any. Bradford, Yorkshire, Redbeck Press, 1999.
Recording: Gestures, Black Sheep, 1984.
Other
Cells: Prose Pieces. Lincoln, Grosseteste Press, 1967.
Saloon Bar: 3 Jim Burns Stories. London, Ferry Press, 1967.
Types: Prose Pieces and Poems. Cardiff, Second Aeon, 1970.
The Five Senses. Oldham, Lancashire, Incline Press, 1999.
Beats, Bohemians, and Intellectuals: Selected Essays. Nottingham, Notts., Trent Editions, 1999.
*Critical Studies: "The American Influence" by the author, in New Society (London), 7 December 1967; "Exit to Preston" by Raymond Gardner, in The Guardian (London), 10 August 1972; "A Poet in His Northern Corner" by Bel Mooney, in Daily Telegraph Magazine (London), 2 March 1973; "Jim Burns' Poems" by John Freeman, in Cambridge Quarterly, 1975; "Mit Poesei Kannst Du Kein Auto Fahren" by Michael Buselmeir, in Frankfurter Rundschau, 8 April 1978; "A Northern Master" by Gavin Ewart, in Ambit (London), 112, 1988; "How Beat Can You Get?" in Five Leaves Left (Leeds), 1988, and "Jim Burns: Poet of 'The Real World,'" in BOGG (Arlington, U.S.A. and Filey, England), 1990, both by Andy Darlington; "War, Class War, History and Narrative in the Poetry of Jim Burns" by John Freeman, in Poetry Wales (Bridgend), 1996.
Jim Burns comments:
(1970) I suppose my main subject matter tends toward the "domestic," i.e., that which I know best and experience personally. Brevity and wit are attributes I admire in a poet, and I think (or hope) that some of this comes through in some of my own work.
My main influences have been contemporary American and English poets and some translations from the Chinese and Japanese. I like the directness in these latter. If asked to single out one poet whose work I particularly like and find stimulating I would name Kenneth Rexroth.
I have a deep feeling that the most significant ideas can be expressed in direct and clear language and that the unusual and significant are in the obvious.
The reader may also get an idea of my leanings from the opinions expressed in the articles I have contributed since 1964 to Tribune on little magazines and related publications.
(1974) In the past three or four years my poetry has, I think, tended to diversify, both in form and content. I still like brevity and wit but have found that, in order to deal with matters outside the domestic concerns my poems once related to, I've had to become perhaps more discursive. In a sense, as the subject matter widens, so do the forms I use. The lines tend to be longer, the rhythm less precise. Interestingly enough, however, I find that when I do revert to domestic concerns the form tightens again.
(1995) I still continue to write poetry which draws on my personal experience, both past and present. In recent years a number of the poems have referred back to childhood events, army service, and other periods in my earlier life. But at the same time I continue to produce poems which focus on the contemporary scene and on the everyday circumstances of the environment in which I live. Politics and social matters continue to play a part in my poetry, and the title of my new collection, Confessions of an Old Believer (forthcoming from Redbeck Press, Bradford, England), may suggest to the reader a basis for my thinking and poetic concerns.
(1999) The comments from 1995 are still relevant, though I would add that the older I get the more I seem to pare poems down to their basics and be as direct as I can with what I want to say.
* * *If one had to find a single word to describe Jim Burns's poems, it would be "anecdotal." Each poem tells a story, and the tone adopted is that of the raconteur, with the impetus relying more on the narrative flow and the ultimate making of a point than on language or rhythm as such. What informs each story is the persona adopted, that of the wryly candid man who, though beguiled by the romantic, is never taken in by it, whether it be romantic love—"Better to make love in bed, turn/your back afterwards. Sleep easy" ("The Way It Is")—or the pretentiousness of romantic politics ("Meanwhile"):
The left wing intellectuals
had fought the Paris Commune, the
General Strike, the Spartacist uprising
and the Spanish Civil War all over
again and would have sung the Red Flag
had they known the words or tune.
Instead, they ordered another round
and the landlord rubbed his hands
and then called time. For everyone.
Indeed, it seems to be Burn's mission to deflate gently the phony and the ostentatious, gently because he too knows the temptations and has sympathy with those who succumb. For this reason the language used avoids the "high flown" to the point of flatness, with Burns's sense of rhythm and the narrative flow carrying the poems on. Nevertheless, the truth must out. "Is a man any less a poet/because he stays at home/with his wife and children," he asks in "A Single Flower." Poetry stands or falls by what is on the page; it is irrelevant if the author washes himself, sleeps with his sister, or has two heads or if he is an archbishop or an arch-Villon:
I once slept out all night
with the homeless, and although
it taught me pity
it did not teach me poetry.
He is right, though there are some who will not forgive him for the statement. But self-depreciatory, honest, and always caring as he is, one cannot help liking the man behind the poems.
The man behind the voice is still there, a voice that can be only his and that dominates the poems in the booklets and in collections such as The Gift and Out of the Past. The same wry humor is there, cautiously treading the path between deflating the pretentious and the danger of being pretentious itself. For Burns is well aware that satire is a serious business demanding a firm and convinced set of values.
"I am by nature and temperament an urban person," he once said in an interview. He sees the urban landscape and culture as one lived in and shared by real people who deserve celebration. He has no truck with those who wish to run away from it or with those ruralists among young poets who write as if Baudelaire and Eliot had not existed. He pursues what he sees as "an urban mythology for a real world."