Dom Bury's Rite of Passage is an initiation into what it means to be alive on the planet in the midst of extinction, of climate, environmental and systematic collapse. It is a journey into the shadow of man's distorted relationship with the earth. And yet in the utter darkness of this hour, these often provocative poems suggest that there is hope. That we have had to come to the edge of our own annihilation as a species to collectively shift how we live, that only in the dark glare of this crisis, can a new world from the ashes of the old one now be formed. Dom Bury is a writer and activist who runs workshops on the emotional and human impacts of climate change and environmental degradation. He received an Eric Gregory Award in 2016 and won the 2017 National Poetry Competition with his poem 'The Opened Field'. Rite of Passage is his first collection.
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This window wiped suddenly clear in winter shows the old wood up on the hill I stood in last Autumn just to cut an hour out of time WHAT MY BODY SHOWED ME
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(@BloodaxeBooks, 20 April 2021, ebook, 80 pages, #ARC from the publisher via @edelweiss_squad and voluntarily reviewed)
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This is my first time reading the poet. I thought Rite of Passage was excellent and I look forward to reading more of his work. This is a debut collection. I look forward to seeing what the poet comes up with next. The poems loosely explore the theme of human against nature but touch on an array of other subjects. I enjoyed all of the poems, the poet knows how to use language and create vivid images. The best poems included The Opened Field, Snow Country, The Body's New Weather and Metamorphosis.