Murdoch Burnett died on 20 September 2015
Murdoch was my husband and the love of my life. We have been a part of each other's lives for over forty years. I am George Parry's niece (Murdoch's long time friend, mentor and publisher). Six years ago Murdoch had throat cancer. As a result of the surgery and the trauma, he lost most of his vision and his speech was impaired.
We married five years ago, on 25 September 2010. I introduced him as my husband but he always introduced himself, and defined himself, as a poet. His light had always been fuelled by the desire to create something beautiful. When he could not envision ever again writing a great poem or creating a wholly beautiful thing his light went out.
The poet's soul lived in agony over the past five years and he finally chose to end his life because he no longer believed he could create and contribute beauty to the world, but his brave and daily struggle to live for me, his family, and his friends was beautiful beyond any words ever written.
Susan
Watts Towers
I want to live like I'm building
Watts Towers. Each moment a glittering
thing to be picked up, a discarded tile
shard from the dust made beautiful
by finding and pressed with love
in the mortar. Then, at the end
of it all, secretly, deep in
me, will be three reaching
towers in bright sunlight.
I have love in me
like the building of Watts Towers.
Each fragment of tile and bottle I find
I will press to mortar with fingers
trembling from that love. I have
love in me like building
Watts Towers.
"Watts Towers"
written by Murdoch Burnett
About Murdoch ...
Murdoch Burnett was born on 9 October 1953 and passed away on 20 September 2015.
During his
lifetime he was honoured at the Calgary International Spoken Word
Festival "Home on Earth" in 2007 with the first ever
Golden Beret Award for his lifelong contribution to the arts
community, mastery of his art and performances and dedication to
his community. Performing throughout North America, he was
for many years a regular at Ten Foot Henry's and Marty's Cafe in
Calgary. He and musician/composer Scott Willing composed the
music for the poems: We Are Not Romans, Technologically
Native, The Homecoming, A Choice of Futures, The Long Distance, and
The Centre of the World. Murdoch has performed at several
High Performance Rodeos produced by One Yellow Rabbit Theatre
Company in Calgary and, in 1988, he was invited to perform at the
Calgary Olympic Arts Festival with writers from 27
countries.
In 1996, Murdoch was invited to attend the first ever "Wordfest: Banff Calgary International Writers Festival"featuring 50 writers over four days. The other writers included Margaret Atwood, Roch Carrier, Wayson Choy, Thomson Highway, Paul Quarrington and Sheri-D Wilson.
Please visit Murdoch's Performance Arhives page
[LINK TO PERFORMANCE ARCHIVES PAGE]
Website Updates ...
PERFORMANCE ARCHIVES ADDED
EXPERIMENTS IN A PURE FORM (1981)
THE HOMECOMING (1988)
RIVER DEEP, MOUNTAIN HIGH (1996)
A DAY ON EARTH (2000)
FLOWERS & ARCHITECTURE:
BERMUDA
Selected Photographs
by
Murdoch Burnett
A Commonplace 4
WILD CHICKENS
Unpublished Archives
A DAY ON EARTH
Updated
3rd May 2014
Home
Page
Updated
23 September 2015
All prose and poems Copyright by Murdoch Burnett, 2013