The poems in amphora seize on the miraculous moments contained in life and language, interrogating them with scepticism on the one hand, celebrating them with a comic sense of wonder on the other. The collection’s focus ranges from the magical exploits of saints recalled from the poet’s Catholic childhood, to her variations on the Zen koan, to the accidental ‘out of the blue’ poems in the final sequence. Burns draws attitudes which define a way of living - gladness, openness, curiosity, acceptance, and above all sensual delight, in the abundance of the world’s offerings, and in the possibilities of language: ‘may the polysemic flower bloom’.