Departure Lounge

Departure Lounge returns to the theme of mortality with characteristic insight and honesty. Concerned not only with how we characterise and cope with death, but with a sense of urgency for all that is being lost, culturally or ecologically, this is deeply intelligent collection. Accessible, yet exacting; lyrical, but without a wasted word, these poems unspool in single, unassailable sentences that ring with truth.

'Approach to the Dark Gates'

I am trying not to think of how it will be when history yawns in the library, turning a page,
and a fly buzzes at the window through a long afternoon;

about humanity there’s little to say,
‘they were here, they stayed a while, their eyes
travelled through space to the stars’.

Praise for John Barnie’s Previous WorkWind Playing with a Man’s Hat

Barnie’s poems occur as flashes, dependent on brief epiphanies, and are powerfully aphoristic. … John Barnie is an immediately approachable poet who should be recommended to those who normally shy away from verse. But his poems should not be given to children. They will find this writer scary. … A faithful reader will know what dismays him: ecological diminishment linked with realization that people have no idea what is being lost.
Robert Minhinnick,

The Roaring Boys:

‘Barnie’s poetry is hard to dislike, its pace, its riff being easy on the eye and ear, but he doesn’t pander to the heart.’
Kym Martindale, New Welsh Review