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Dan Burt (b. 1942) is a poet for whom form is a central concern. Most of the poems in his first collection, Searched for Text (Lintott Press in association with Carcanet, 2008), use traditional formal structures, including the villanelle, syllabics, blank verse and, most frequently, the sonnet. At the same time, the tone and subject matter continually probe the value of form and the civilised intellectual world it embodies. There is a concern that this world is already beyond redemption: in the moving elegy 'For John Crook' the impending death of Burt's much-loved classics tutor feels symbolic of a loss of standards, both intellectual and moral, in wider society.
Many of these "strikingly ambitious poems" (Elaine Feinstein, PN Review) touch on mortality. In 'Momentum' the poem's ordered structure stands in contrast to the chaos wreaked by cancer. This is mirrored by an equally strong emphasis on moral failure: in 'Pas de Deux', Burt uses the language of ballet in a sophisticated metaphysical conceit to evoke an adulterous affair. While many poems examine the morality of personal relationships, Burt is also deeply concerned with the larger historical picture, particularly the Holocaust. In 'Blue Rinse Matron' the two are bound up together: the snobbery of the rich woman towards her cook is, the poem implies, on the same moral continuum as the USA's refusal to grant asylum to Jewish refugees in 1939.
The world of the poems is also informed by the poet's familiarity with, and distance from, his native USA. Born in South Philadelphia in 1942, he attended state schools and a local catholic college before reading English at Cambridge. He graduated from Yale Law School and practiced law in the United States, United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia until moving to London in 1994 and becoming a British citizen. He is an honorary Fellow of St. John's College Cambridge and lives and writes in London. His poems have been published in PN Review, Poetry Review, and The Eagle.
Burt's Archive recording reveals his passion for form as he describes how each poem is technically constructed. Though his work often inhabits a world in dissolution, this pride in the poems' construction, coupled with a dry wit, makes for a rewarding listen.
