{"id":16545,"date":"2017-11-20T17:28:33","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T17:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/?p=16545"},"modified":"2018-02-08T12:12:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T12:12:21","slug":"swimming-can-give-you-the-optimism-to-keep-going-elizabeth-jane-burnett-in-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/2017\/11\/swimming-can-give-you-the-optimism-to-keep-going-elizabeth-jane-burnett-in-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"“Swimming can give you the optimism to keep going” – Elizabeth-Jane Burnett in the Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extract:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“What can I do as a person on the planet, as a human being, as a writer, as the unique set of things that I am?\u201d asks Elizabeth-Jane Burnett. \u201cHow can I help the environment?\u201d For a writer and scholar who has been exploring the natural world and alternatives to capitalism in pamphlets, exhibitions and academic papers, the response to environmental catastrophe was clear: poetry.<\/p>\n

Swims<\/a><\/em>, her first book, is one long poem that follows the author as she dives into open water across England and Wales, plunging into rivers, lakes and seas in a watery circuit that takes in the Ouse, the Teign, the Channel, Grasmere and King\u2019s Cross Pond in London. Some sections record a process or ritual \u2013 hopes and fears written across a swimsuit in black marker pen before immersion, or a group of swimmers inhabiting some non-human identity, entering the sea and then reporting back. Others focus on the feeling of not ending \u201cwhere you thought you did \/ not with skin but with water \/ not with arms but with meadow \/ of watercress, dropwort, floating pennywort\u201d, the sensation of \u201can upward force \/ greater than the weight of the heart\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the full article on the Guardian <\/em>website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Swims author Elizabeth-Jane Burnett speaks to Richard Lea in the Guardian for their First Book Interview in November 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[225,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16545"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16545"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16983,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16545\/revisions\/16983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}