Wing

Product Description Matthew Francis's latest collection celebrates the richness of nature and of our responses to it. The pleasures of summer are emblazoned in the colourful wings and evocative names of butterflies, while a nocturnal encounter with an earwig becomes a joyous incantation to the 'witchy-beetle, forkin-robin' of dialect. Francis's love of history, embodied in his acclaimed Mandeville and The Mabinogi, gives rise to a sequence based on Robert Hooke's microscopic observations. There are tributes to the poets Basho, Dafydd ap Gwilym and W. S. Graham, to fireworks, apple varieties and hot toddies. And, in a moving elegy for a friend killed in a parachute accident, Francis shows us a vertiginous vision of a world where even the dead 'sleep on the wing'. Review This shimmering collection dissects the natural world with a wondering, meticulous eye, by a gentle and quiet poet who occasionally recalls Dylan Thomas. -- Guardian Best Books of 2020 Linguistic precision sustains [Francis's] new collection . . . The sense of discovery and delight is palpable. -- Standpoint Outstanding. Poignant, sensitive, intricate, witty, it captures both panorama and microcosm. -- Tablet Review This shimmering collection dissects the natural world with a wondering, meticulous eye, by a gentle and quiet poet who occasionally recalls Dylan Thomas. ― Guardian Best Books of 2020 Outstanding. Poignant, sensitive, intricate, witty, it captures both panorama and microcosm.' ― The Tablet Linguistic precision sustains [Francis's] new collection . . . The sense of discovery and delight is palpable' ― Standpoint Book Description Adventurous and illuminating, Matthew Francis's poetry collection is full of flight, air and possibility - now in paperback. About the Author Matthew Francis is the author of four Faber collections, most recently Muscovy (2013). 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, and published a collection of short stories and two novels, the second of which, The Book of the Needle (Cinnamon Press), came out in 2014. He lives in West Wales and is Professor in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University.