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. His 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.

Author Matthew Francis Published by Faber & Faber ISBN 9780571358625 EAN 9780571358625 Bic Code Cover Paperback