In this new book Burkard continues his associative method of allowing the reader to follow his movement of dream and memory, psychology and color. Written as a notebook, My Secret Boat is a collage of stories, poems, dreams, and sketches. Among Burkard's subjects are childhood, the sea, family, alcoholism, love. We follow the narrator on a journey as he explores the images, characters, and incidents from his past.
Identities merge and even become contrary.
In lyrical tones in which no one moment is more serious or less comic than another, presences and secrets are celebrated and illuminated by both animate and inanimate worlds. The sun, the moon, a brook, blackbirds, lanterns, boats have information or gifts or sources for us. Finally, each affirms the anonymous powers of the inner life.