Rite of Passage

By Dom Bury

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Apr 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781780375502

Dom Bury

Dom Bury is a devotee to this green miraculous earth in this time of planetary transfiguration. He lives in Devon and holds workshops, rituals and initiations into living in a world in crisis and how we can move back into equilibrium and greater connection with the earth. He has received an Eric Gregory Award and a Jerwood/Arvon Mentorship, and he won the 2017 National Poetry Competition. He also won the Magma Poetry Prize and 2nd Prize in the Resurgence Ecopoetry Competition and was a finalist in the Ballymaloe International Poetry Competition. He has performed his work on BBC Radio 4, at Aldeburgh, Ledbury and other poetry festivals, and his work has been made into film by the Poetry Society. His first collection Rite of Passage was published by Bloodaxe in 2021.

Book preview

DOM BURY

RITE OF PASSAGE

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.

‘I haven’t come across anything like this – the astounding poems in Dom Bury’s Rite of Passage writhe with raw visionary life, as if made of bone and fire. They terrify and hypnotise. They are chants of survival, incantations to bear us safely through climate collapse and mass extinction. They draw our elemental selves out onto burning fields, and miraculously heal us. This is poetry as initiation, as Orphic oracle – and rigorous truth telling.’ – Pascale Petit

‘Stark, original, obsessive, and visionary, the poems in Rite of Passage are prophecies of an uncanny musicality. Imagine a blend of Cormac McCarthy and Louise Glück and you begin to approach an understanding of the frightening desecrations and oracular clarities of this book. Bury walks through the burnings of an accelerated world, through drought and miscarried years, through snow and nuclear fallout, bringing poems of apocalyptic horror and raw beauty, returning us with new consciousness to the fallen world. The prayer is implicit throughout – let us stop, let us wake to new light. This book is fire.’ – Fiona Benson

‘An astonishing debut. The environment has never felt so urgent; the world, through Bury’s writing, has never felt so close at hand. Mythical and raw – a terrific book.’ – Niall Campbell

Cover art: The Magician (2020) by Nomi McLeod

DOM BURY

Rite of Passage

CONTENTS

Title Page

Acknowledgements

What My Body Showed Me

KYRIE

Hiraeth

Brother

The Opened Field

Black Bird, Nine Nails, One Child

Foie Gras

Spring Without Voices

The Chapel in the Sea

Under Dartington Redwoods

Our Species

DIES IRAE

Snow Country

Why I Have Chosen Not to Have Children

Seasons — A Requiem

All I Can Offer You is This

On the Theme — Fire

Hunger

LIBERA ME

The Body’s New Weather