ISBN: 978-1-915108-38-8
Published 12 February 2026
80 pages
“The poems in Burnt Snow live in a space which is at once domestic, intellectual, and sensual, and whose walls are continually tested. This is a book where the materiality of the world seeps into and across itself, switches, and veers. At times, sudden ventures out of silent observation explode into indignant speech: they return to the cooler reflection of a fascinating and fascinated mind. The world polarises — trompe l’oeil on one axis, emotional intensity on the other — until there is a return to its true state, like snow itself: certainly beautiful, a little brittle, and always uncanny.” —Richard Price
“Berring’s work feels like rubbing a balloon against a jumper. It sparks a static adults tend to forget is always within arm’s reach. Everyday objects, emotions, imperatives, and the biggest questions we have are conjured and rubbed against each other to an effect that’s as soothing as it is bewildering, as candid as it is absurd, as giddy as it is snug. A must!” —Nasim Luczaj
*
No Glitter on the Roses
I have forgotten
how to write
and how to learn
what to do
with wilted objects
in my fevered hands
that could melt
(pause)
the whole snow
Burnt Snow by Tessa Berring
That Hurts. I Know
Start with this moment
Start with syrup or blue honeyin a patchwork drawstring bag
Of course I hold tight to ribbons!
(wore a collar once, meant for a large chihuahua)Can I sprinkle you with cedar oil?
I am dressed in a stranger’s pyjamas
and you, you are under my skindelicious as whipped ice cubes
A lover can make a bedroom ache
so for now say ‘Tuesday’or simply suggest that ‘trouble’
will burst not out of, but intoa wooden brass-hinged box
(carved with nests and wide-eyed songbirds)Take hunger. It’s a hammer
Take distance, stolen from the edge of the worldI wish I had a ball of orange clay
to shape into trembling ideas about magicIt feels foolish now to speak
about my first experiences of dyingwhen in the end it wasn’t dying
just glitter in a paper cup
*
The Earth Swallows Its Snow
Up early and writingWhere has poetry gone?
Gone? I’ve gone nowhereI didn’t expect an answer this soon
Only 6.00 am
Dog in the hallway, coffeea flower wide open
And I must have set an alarm
as here is the newsmusic, missiles, clouds, light rain
‘Empty the last of the medicine’
Is that where poetry is?Or on the seawall painted
with empty cushionedsun loungers, dirty lemon flip-flops
a geranium-red fist?
Burnt Snow follows Tessa Berring’s previous Blue Diode collections Bitten Hair and Folded Purse. It forms a trilogy and suggests an ending. However, it also stands as a collection in its own right and no knowledge of the previous books is necessary before reading it.
More of her work can be found via magazines and other indie presses. Tessa also works in visual art and written collaborations. Her poetry is for lightness – a playfulness of language, but in landscapes in which words are also hard.
