Departure Lounge returns to the theme of mortality with characteristic insight and honesty. Concerned not only with how we characterise and cope with death, but with a sense of urgency for all that is being lost, culturally or ecologically, this is deeply intelligent collection. Accessible, yet exacting; lyrical, but without a wasted word, these poems unspool in single, unassailable sentences that ring with truth.
‘Barnie’s poetry is hard to dislike, its pace, its riff being easy on the eye and ear, but he doesn’t pander to the heart.’ - Kym Martindale, New Welsh Review