Poetry review – BURNTISLAND: Colin Pink reviews a collection in which Ian Farnes reflects on the history of his own small home town
Burntisland
Ian Farnes
Ignition Press, 2025,
ISBN 978-1-7394543-4-0
£7
Ignition Press is one of my favourite small publishers. It consistently publishes exciting new voices in UK poetry, so I’m always keen to see a new crop of publications with their distinctive cover design. Among this year’s new crop is Burntisland.
Burntisland is the name of a small town on the north shore of the Firth of Forth in Scotland. In the past it was a major centre for ship building, but now the industry has gone. There’s even a small hand-drawn map of the place at the front of the pamphlet. It is the home town of the author and this collection weaves together industrial archaeology, family chronicle and personal history. This collection reminded me of how much we are all embedded in a history that shapes us; this is especially apparent in the opening poem, “Key”:
I’m part of an exhibit in the local museum
a cardboard cut-out boy version of me
with hands on hips
in a plyboard Edwardian fair.
Farnes unearths the ghosts of the past in these spare poems which often have a valedictory air; for instance in a description of abandoned industrial infra-structure in “After the Shift”:
… wind moves
through the warehouse
over yards of ivy, shards of glass
with gulls like tinfoil flecks
above the dawn bright
gable steps
Farnes considers the fate of the ships built in the shipyard in “The Sun Shipping Co. Ltd.”, the names of whose ships begin with the word ‘sun’: ‘sun field / sun bank / sun cliff / keels are laid in silt / their ribs are salt-corroded / colonies of rust’. And this is contrasted with the slow dissolution of the elderly in “Edna Adrift, 1992”:
there is a gap
between bedside
and water
a harbour’s mouth
between pulp of fingers
feeling for edges
and the ridges
cut on crystal ashtrays
curved handles of enamel cups
This is followed by an especially beautiful poem, “The Berries” where the flesh of fruit is equated with the flesh of people but the poet wants ‘…sweetness without withering’ and where, although ‘I’d love to love all summer long’, there is an awareness that nothing is as ‘certain as the season’s end’. So the message is to make the most of the moment, for all things are transient, the natural world of fruit, fish and birds, the industrial world of ship building, and the span of each life.
There’s an uncanny quality to some of the poems, with their hints of ghostly presences. In “The Tar Brae”: ‘Maybe the haar / hidden shores / or ghosts and spirits know /how ties are slipped / and rope unrolls…’
There’s a tension in Farnes’ work between realism and a lyrical vision. Several poems, such as “The Tar Brae”, “Free Spool” and “Sundials” have an intense lyricism about them that rewards close attention and it’ll be interesting to see if Farnes has the confidence or inclination to follow this aspect of his work in future poems. For instance in “Free Spool”: ‘If barely sounded lines run fast and straight / I’ll keep the silence just as I’ve been taught’.
Or in “Sundials”:
a ghosting flare a halo
on the child an orb of broken sun
caught up in youth remembering
a heartbeat like a great dub echo
where we thought that we belonged but looked away
Burntisland is a place that has evolved from its industrial roots into a commuter town and a tourist destination. Farnes’ poetry reminds us of how the past is all around us, within us and, quite literally beneath us, as highlighted in the final poem, “A Forest” where the poet can sense the past buried under the new housing development: ‘…I can feel it move the slabs / beneath my feet / and work into the houses / on the new estate’.
May 26 2025
London Grip Poetry Review – Ian Farnes
Poetry review – BURNTISLAND: Colin Pink reviews a collection in which Ian Farnes reflects on the history of his own small home town
Ignition Press is one of my favourite small publishers. It consistently publishes exciting new voices in UK poetry, so I’m always keen to see a new crop of publications with their distinctive cover design. Among this year’s new crop is Burntisland.
Burntisland is the name of a small town on the north shore of the Firth of Forth in Scotland. In the past it was a major centre for ship building, but now the industry has gone. There’s even a small hand-drawn map of the place at the front of the pamphlet. It is the home town of the author and this collection weaves together industrial archaeology, family chronicle and personal history. This collection reminded me of how much we are all embedded in a history that shapes us; this is especially apparent in the opening poem, “Key”:
Farnes unearths the ghosts of the past in these spare poems which often have a valedictory air; for instance in a description of abandoned industrial infra-structure in “After the Shift”:
Farnes considers the fate of the ships built in the shipyard in “The Sun Shipping Co. Ltd.”, the names of whose ships begin with the word ‘sun’: ‘sun field / sun bank / sun cliff / keels are laid in silt / their ribs are salt-corroded / colonies of rust’. And this is contrasted with the slow dissolution of the elderly in “Edna Adrift, 1992”:
This is followed by an especially beautiful poem, “The Berries” where the flesh of fruit is equated with the flesh of people but the poet wants ‘…sweetness without withering’ and where, although ‘I’d love to love all summer long’, there is an awareness that nothing is as ‘certain as the season’s end’. So the message is to make the most of the moment, for all things are transient, the natural world of fruit, fish and birds, the industrial world of ship building, and the span of each life.
There’s an uncanny quality to some of the poems, with their hints of ghostly presences. In “The Tar Brae”: ‘Maybe the haar / hidden shores / or ghosts and spirits know /how ties are slipped / and rope unrolls…’
There’s a tension in Farnes’ work between realism and a lyrical vision. Several poems, such as “The Tar Brae”, “Free Spool” and “Sundials” have an intense lyricism about them that rewards close attention and it’ll be interesting to see if Farnes has the confidence or inclination to follow this aspect of his work in future poems. For instance in “Free Spool”: ‘If barely sounded lines run fast and straight / I’ll keep the silence just as I’ve been taught’.
Or in “Sundials”:
Burntisland is a place that has evolved from its industrial roots into a commuter town and a tourist destination. Farnes’ poetry reminds us of how the past is all around us, within us and, quite literally beneath us, as highlighted in the final poem, “A Forest” where the poet can sense the past buried under the new housing development: ‘…I can feel it move the slabs / beneath my feet / and work into the houses / on the new estate’.