Twelve Words for Moss

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2024

Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2023 for Nature Writing

‘Exquisite, luminous and quietly radical . . . utterly unique and refreshing’ Lucy Jones

Where nothing grows, moss is the spark that triggers new life. Embarking on a journey though landscape, memory and recovery, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett explores this mysterious, ancient marvel of the plant world, meditating on and renaming her favourite mosses – from Glowflake to Little Loss – and drawing inspiration from place, people and language itself.

‘Fascinating, subtle and risk-taking . . . Poetry, descriptive-evocative prose, memory, memoir, natural history and more all drift and mingle in strikingly new ways’ Robert MacfarlaneTwelve Words for Moss is a fascinating, subtle and risk-taking book; its remarkable opening pages in particular dis-orient and re-orient the reader, readying us for the forms of attention-giving to the overlooked and undersung world of mosses which the rest of the book beautifully practices. Poetry, descriptive-evocative prose, memory, memoir, natural history and more all drift and mingle in strikingly new ways in Burnett’s book, down at the “boundary layer” where this ancient, modest life flourishes so generatively—Robert Macfarlane

Exquisite, luminous and quietly radical … so electric and so alive. It makes the world more beautiful and dimensional and vibrant – or moreso, it shows the world as it is to our moss-blind, weary eyes with a prose style that is utterly unique and refreshing … I loved it—Lucy Jones

This accomplished writer’s prose – filled with figurative and tactile imagery – and interspersed poetry powerfully join the human body, mind, and spirit with the Earth—The Countryman

In this luminous book, poetry and dreamy prose weave a strange kind of mossy magic. Taking the “most overlooked of life forms” as her inspiration, Burnett explores intriguing parallels between the lives of mosses and her own… This is an intense book that rewards careful reading. I took my time over it, absorbing a few pages and then letting the beautiful, unforgettable imagery soak in. Burnett is a unique voice and one of our most original nature writers—Ben Hoare, BBC Countryfile Best Nature Book of the Year

The poet Elizabeth-Jane Burnett has woven a bittersweet travelogue-cum-nature memoir… It thrums with loss.—The Sunday Times

A masterclass in the art of prose writing, and my favourite nonfiction book in a very long time—Sharon Blackie, author of If Women Rose Rooted

Hybridity (of form, subject) is what makes Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s work sing, beguile. Part poet, prose nature writer and woodland psychogeographer, her voice is her own—Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations: Reflections From Life

Praise for The Grassling—:

A subtle, moving celebration of place and connectedness . . . The Grassling brings the sounds, smells and sights of the countryside alive like few other books. Burnett stretches the limits of prose, infusing it with poetic intensity to create a powerful, original voice . . . Her prose is both sinuous and knotty, stretching language to capture what is often beyond words, while slowing down the process of reading, allowing us to savour them—PD Smith, Guardian

Exquisite . . . needs to be savoured slowly, and then read again. Burnett is breaking new ground as a mixed-heritage English/Kenyan woman connecting so deeply to the historic land of her father’s family in the West Country—Bernardine Evaristo

With a blend of poetry, memoir and a uniquely experimental, sensory style of nature writing, The Grassling celebrates the lusciousness of both land and language … Ideas that might in a lesser writer have seemed whimsical are grounded by the rich layers of Burnett’s prose—Clare Saxby, TLSElizabeth-Jane Burnett is a poet whose work explores environmental issues through creative writing. She is the author of The Grassling, an exploration of memory and natural history, as well as Twelve Words for Moss, which was shortlisted for the 2023 Wainwright Prize. Burnett is a contributor to The Guardian‘s ‘Country Diary’ column and has also published two poetry collections: Swims, a Sunday Times Poetry Book of the Year, and Of Sea.GB

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