Thomas Joachim Kingston, UK

Matthew Francis’ Whereabouts is a poetic trek through a familiar landscape – but the landmarks have shifted. It is as unsettling as it is thought provoking: the best examples are in Cat, Roadkill, Harbour, Rockpool and Dawn Walk. Francis suggests doubt is the path to rediscovery and his great strength is ambiguity. Whether it is the deep significance of a distilled moment carefully decanted into a simple phrase, like “you seemed to know” (Indoor Market, Cardiff) or “It means business” (Roadkill), or the self-consciously humorous “I feel I’ve hatched out of / this resinous shell / like a walnut” (Staircase, Cambridge), Francis delights in making language the vehicle of joy and terror, contradiction and surprise. But beneath the familiar – beneath the wonderment of the moment – fragmentation and separation lie in wait. Even if “the hills / dream coconut” (Gorse) and a midnight sun appears like “leftover gold” (Tallinn, June), the impression is merely illusion. There is no lasting safety in home or Harbour, as “news from the deep makes / the boats shiver”.

So, what then is the answer to Matthew Francis’ central question –

Whereabouts is it, that
Euclidian land

Fashioned from light?

I suspect it isn’t a question at all. He’s known the answer all along.