REVIEWS
"Francis's astonishingly assured manipulation of the narrow confines of the sestet in his breathtaking 2006 pamphlet [book], Whereabouts, showed his formal dexterity."
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Sarah Crown, The Guardian (December 29, 2007)
“The way in which Francis navigates through the strictures of his form, doubling and tripling meanings as he goes, is not just astonishingly virtuosic but moving: he is a poetic Houdini, escaping into a locked box in order to liberate his subject self.”
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David C. Ward, PN Review (November-December, 2006)
"Matthew Francis already has an impressive pedigree. With this outstanding volume, his place among contemporary British poetry's aristocracy is confirmed. Each poem in this brief, beautiful book conforms to the same strict template: a 45-syllable sestet in which the lines, declining in length from 13 syllables to four, enact the sense of distillation, of homing in, that is a crucial feature of these poems. Francis revels in the brevity of his chosen form; his decision to restrict each poem to the exploration of a single item - a thought, a moment, an individual image - produces a collection that resembles a series of luminous miniatures, painted on the page in precise and glowing brush-strokes."
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Sarah Crown, The Guardian (August 12, 2006)
"The form, and Francis's often whimsical lyricism, give the volume its delicate coherence, while the poems' titles indicate the range of locations Whereabouts considers, including "Indoor Market, Cardiff", "Urban Sunset", and "Tallinn, June", and their inhabitants, from spiders and cats to bullfrogs and pigs' heads. Part of the pleasure of the book comes from the freshness of the poems' observations, such as a spider's "dry / posy of legs", the determination in a dead animal's stillness, and dogwood trees each "adrift in its // vanilla float", to name only a few. The more particular interest of the collection arises from the sense of a positive instability in the world, in natural change and shifting perspectives."
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Carrie Etter, Times Literary Supplement (July 21, 2006)
"Change, metamorphosis, and transformation are the order of the day in Matthew Francis’s Whereabouts, not as supernatural forces but as the essence of a planet that houses us in landscape, seascape and urban setting alike. Though continually unfolding change can disorient, the skill with which Francis inscribes change offers immense delight. As we find ourselves wondering “Whereabouts is this whereabouts?” we’re led to realise it’s here, right in front of us."
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Maureen Scott Harris, Canada
"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. 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."
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Thomas Joachim Kingston, UK |
