Burns Singer (1928-1964), born James Hyman Singer in New York and an American citizen all his life, was a poet usually identified as Scottish. He was brought up in Scotland from a young age, and educated in Glasgow. He had Polish, Jewish and Irish ancestry, and showed considerable interest in Polish poetry.


In 1945 he came south to London, taking some teaching work, and then went to Cornwall where he came into contact with W. S. Graham, a major poetic influence. He studied at Glasgow University, beginning degree courses in Zoology and English; but abandoned those after the 1951 suicide of his mother. He had by then spent a year in Marburg, and done some service in the U. S. Army.


perhaps Singer’s best long poem — is ‘The Transparent Prisoner’. a major contrtbution to the poetry of Worl d war 2. Power is the dominant theme: power of men, forms, and language. The man with power (‘Marcus Antoninus’) and the man who is the victim of that power (‘The Transparent Prisoner’): both are portrayed. ‘The Transparent Prisoner’, a Second World War captured soldier, suffers first starvation and then slave labour


http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=6386

Poetry nation no 5, 1975 Michael Smith on Burns Singer