. . . the world John Purser makes for us in his poems, as in his music and his
scholarship, is archipelagic, characterised by diversity and depths,
bright sunlit perceptions and profundities of insight into the nature
of the earth itself, and as far out as the music of the spheres permits us,
granting self-awareness of, and exploring, not only knowledge,
but intuitive awareness . . . .
John Purser’s poems are a vast and wonderful terrain of things not
only mentioned but encountered, crossed and tenderly, touched, places
and people, ideas and themes, emphatically demanding we prioritise,
should pay attention to, should know and therefore act upon, the things
that matter most. There is, time and again, the mysterious, but there is
also the practical. Purser works as a crofter, he is literally in ‘regular
contact with other species’ and this, in his poems, teaches us, as it has
taught him, ‘respect for their place in the world’ and our place in our
own, and where they overlap. The singular achievement of his poems is
the delivery of this.
(from the Introduction by Alan Riach)
scholarship, is archipelagic, characterised by diversity and depths,
bright sunlit perceptions and profundities of insight into the nature
of the earth itself, and as far out as the music of the spheres permits us,
granting self-awareness of, and exploring, not only knowledge,
but intuitive awareness . . . .
John Purser’s poems are a vast and wonderful terrain of things not
only mentioned but encountered, crossed and tenderly, touched, places
and people, ideas and themes, emphatically demanding we prioritise,
should pay attention to, should know and therefore act upon, the things
that matter most. There is, time and again, the mysterious, but there is
also the practical. Purser works as a crofter, he is literally in ‘regular
contact with other species’ and this, in his poems, teaches us, as it has
taught him, ‘respect for their place in the world’ and our place in our
own, and where they overlap. The singular achievement of his poems is
the delivery of this.
(from the Introduction by Alan Riach)