WHEREABOUTS

¶ Whereabouts is Matthew Francis’s first poetry collection published outside of the United Kingdom, and the first book published by Rufus Books Publishing.

• 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. The more particular interest of the collection arises from the sense of a positive instability in the world, in natural change and shifting perspectives. ❧ Carrie Etter, TLS

• 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. ❧ Sarah Crown, The Guardian

• Matthew Francis’s 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. Francis delights in making language the vehicle of joy and terror, contradiction and surprise. ❧ Thomas Joachim Kingston

• 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. ❧ David C. Ward, PN Review

• 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. ❧ Maureen Scott Harris

¶ Matthew Francis is the author of seven volumes of poetry published by Faber & Faber, most recently Wing (2020). He has twice been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, and in 2004 was chosen as one of the Next Generation Poets. He has also edited W. S. Graham’s New Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 2004) and New Selected Poems (Faber & Faber, 2019), and is the author of a study of Graham, Where the People Are (Salt Publishing, 2004). Francis has published a collection of short stories and three novels, the third of which is forthcoming with Neem Tree Press, Nocturne with Gaslamps (2024), as well as a non-fiction study, Depersonalization and Creative Writing: Unreal City (Routledge, 2023).

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