Kirjahaku

These tightly wound lyrics examine the dark history of a dictatorship through the lens of motherhood while invoking the pastoral as a metaphor for loss, and the overwhelming human will to survive what has scarified us. By exposing the named and nameless stolen babies of Franco's long regime, Burwick is able to tap into personal and universal fears of rearing children in the face of violence, forgery, and absolutism.

Though none of us can predict our own futures, there are distinctive factors--individual and collective--that may forcibly turn our attention toward the uncertain. In the poems in Brightword the speaker, a mother, contemplates the microcosm and macrocosm of dissection. Physically, her son is at constant risk of a life-threatening cardiac event. Environmentally, her son is obsessed with nature and the threat of eco-catastrophes. Through lyric exchange, images become the principal of repose.

"Has No Kinsman is an amazing exploration of the soul of all that is abstract and yet is more real for it. Kim’s language is supple, sensual and these poems are emblematic." —Chris Abani