Martin Burke

    Martin lives in Flanders and doesn’t just refer to the northern Flemish speaking area of Belgium. When he says Flanders he is touching an imaginative source that covers place and history, archetype and existential fact that roots into all the work he does.
    It was the Welsh poet Vernon Watkins who wrote “I have been luck in this one thing alone” –and this luck in living at a centre which proves to be a Temenos of the imagination both forwards in time and backwards in memory is something for which he is grateful. To live here was not a conscious choice; at least not initially so. Martin came on a holiday to visit a friend intending to stay for ten days or so. That was twenty seven years ago and still the holidays have not ended.
    Not that the rooting into the roots of this place was instant. It wasn’t. Initially all poetry ceased upon moving and for more than twenty years there was no poetry to be written. No thought which could be expressed. No word to which he could give expression.
    And then, four years ago, the mystery returned. All that had lain dormant sought utterance and brought with it the means of utterance. Since then Martin has applied himself to following this word down to its roots and into its future. And it is here that Orpheus seems to him to be the perfect figure of this borderline expression.
 
Martin Burke –poet and playwright
   Founder of the bilingual Theatre group  ‘Zonder Thuis’

“Burke is the eloquent essayist of the sublime” Projected Letters
 
“His style is far ahead in terms of imaginative inventiveness.:
This is startling, original work”
                        Kiosque Review
 
His Recent Poetry Publications include:

The Other Life: FootHills Publishing, NY
The Weave That Binds Us: Inner Circle Publishing, Iowa
Into History: Arabesques Editions, Algeria/USA
Psalms: Default Press, Ireland
Kings (five poems for the theatre): World Audience Publishers, NY
The Easter Ballad: Wordsonthestreet Press, Ireland
Miscellany: FootHills Publishing, NY

Forthcoming:
I Ching: Cervena Barva Press, NY
              
              
His E-books:
Gilgamesh: Cervena Barva Press (Poetry Kit recommendation)
The Aran Mass: Default Press
Love’s Begotten Flame: Dreamers of the Day

Plays
Six Scenes From A War: New Theatre Publications, UK

Short plays produced in USA and UK
His version of The Oresteia had a play reading in Brussels
Plays have been published in Scene4 (USA), Oregon Literary Review (USA), The Roundtable Review(UK) and Electica (UK)

Forthcoming:
The Proclamation at Baghdad (Antigone): India
Everyman: Ireland