Country Music, the full-length debut from Will Burns, is our Book of the Month for April. It’s published today by Offord Road Books. Here follows a poem from the collection, as well as a playlist made by Will to soundtrack it.

Guy

Strange, that time of year
when the maybugs come hard 
and thick and inky.
See them in the windows

of the White Horse Hotel
where they congregate
or in the kerbside dirt
where they are groggy and dying.

To feel the evening coming up
and to stream one way or another,
down the streets lined
with hornbeam and dog shit

and then at once to feel
all these things change. Down
to the angles of the earth itself, the nature
of your work and all other men.

To feel all that was once certain cut 
and run under the folding steel,
like garden birds that scatter 
from a bird of prey.

*

Country Music is out now and available here in our shop, priced £10. Our shop platform, state51, has closed its warehouse until further notice, but is still accepting orders, which will be fulfilled once it is safe for staff to return to work. Your support at this uncertain time would be most appreciated. Alternatively, if you would like to receive a copy of the book more urgently, you can purchase through the Offord Road Books shop, or contact your local bookshop and investigate their purchase and delivery options; although closed in person, many of these small businesses are finding innovative ways to take and fulfil orders, and they too will be most appreciative of your custom.