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Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

- John Burnside
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John Burnside
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Art
Bedroom
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I have never understood why so many gardeners favour straight lines and narrow, regulated borders; perhaps they think wildness could work only in a larger space.

My editor, Robin Robertson, is one of this country's finest poets, so I listen to him when he offers advice.

I'm an insomniac, so my perfect reader is probably another insomniac.

The woods were a boon; all too often, the forest offered danger and mystery. Yet it could be liberating. If you entered that wild place on its own terms, you might be accorded wisdom.

I know that the only reason American landscapes sometimes disappoint me is that, just a century before I was born, the great rivers and prairies and wild forests still existed. And they were sublime.

Sadly, bird illustration has always been an under-appreciated art.

The poem builds in my mind and sits there, as if in a register, until the poem, or a piece of a longer poem, is finished enough to write down. I can hold several lines in my head for quite some time, but as soon as they are written down, the register clears, as it were, and I have to work with what is on the paper.

As a child, I was always intrigued by the question: what is it that distinguishes a city from a town? Is it size? Population? Location? When I asked grown-ups, the confident answer was that a city has to have a cathedral - which, to a child raised in a devout Catholic setting, made sense.

In time, we will have to recognise that it is not 'nature' that we need to protect, but ourselves, and we can only do this by abandoning the old, grandiose, profit-seeking schemes so beloved of our masters and learning to till the soil, live to scale, and live within our means.

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Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.