Burning the Heartwood is a first collection of lyric and pastoral poems. Janet Sutherland was born in Salisbury in 1957. After a childhood on a small dairy farm followed by studies at Cardiff and Essex Universities, she moved to Hackney, East London, and lived there for over twenty years, working in Local Government, for the voluntary sector and as an Adult Education woodwork tutor. Since 2001 she has lived in Lewes, East Sussex, with her partner and son. She currently works for Relate. Some of these poems were written prior to 1990, but the majority were written in Lewes, from 2001 onwards,...

Born in Salisbury in 1957 and growing up on a dairy farm, Janet Sutherland studied at Cardiff and Essex Universities and has an MA in American poetry. After twenty years living and working in East London she moved to Lewes in 2001 with her partner and son. Her first collection, Burning the Heartwood, was published by Shearsman in 2006. The poems in Hangman's Acre are lyrical, weaving images of loss and of love, of grief and light, of language and nature. Where there is beauty it is beauty with an edge.