RICHARD BERENGARTEN has authored three previous ESAW mini books (numbers 10, 19 and 23), the first two under the name of Richard Burns. Like his previous three books in this series, this sequence of 20 poems continues the serialised publication of his work-in-progress, Manual, a sequence in celebration of human hands.

Born in London in 1943 into a family of musicians, Richard Berengarten has published more than twenty-five books. In winter 2008, the first five volumes in his Selected Writings series appeared from Salt Publishing, Cambridge: For the Living, The Manager, The Blue Butterfly, In a Time of Drought and Under Balkan Light. The last three form The Balkan Trilogy. In November 2009, the International Literary Quarterly published translations of his poem ‘Volta’ into more than 75 languages (http://www.interlitq.org). The Salt Critical Companion to Richard Burns, edited by Norman Jope, Paul Scott Derrick and Catherine E. Byfield, is forthcoming in 2010.

A former Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, Richard Berengarten lives in Cambridge, England. He is a Bye-Fellow at Downing College, Preceptor at Corpus Christi College and supervisor at Emmanuel College and Peterhouse. He lives with his partner Melanie Rein, a Jungian psychotherapist.

The cover design reproduces a grainy photo of the Venus of Dolní Vestonice, beside the author's hand, which the author took in the office of the director of the Museum of Moravia, Brno.

V

The afternoon was hanging on a thread

of silvered light and everything was perfect

at and inside that moment in an intense

brilliance. She took the key out of her bag

and opened her own door and went inside

and walked through her own house opening blinds

to let the curious light permeate in. She threw

open windows and the French windows

onto the garden where still the afternoon

hung on its silvered thread as she went out and through.