In her first collection of poetry Hermina Burns explores the inner landscape of grief and the profound difficulties of existing in a world which comes to consist of ‘loss’ and ‘absence’ – taking us on an intimate journey through illness, the mysterious finality of death, and having to come to terms with loving a ‘gone thing’.

Grief is living in a muddle of days, repeating lonely doings, it is ragged gaps and lapses, and tasting salt with grit. Ultimately, it is knowing that nothing will ever return to exactly the same place, same time, same rhyme, whilst also understanding there must be limits to grieving.

Against Separation Creek is also a meditation on the significance of place, and the ways in which the land and the elements evoke powerful human responses when they speak to us – in voices ancient, often wise, and sometimes terrifying.