Testimonials
Bella is as staggeringly humane as it is gleefully transgressive. Francis has the lingusitic verve and laser-focused compassion to bring a cast of characters to vivid and unsettling life. The voices, the grief and the perfectly orchestrated set-pieces have stayed with me and marked me as powerfully as the original mystery. A must.
LUKE KENNARD
A love letter spoken in his mother tongue, refusing to be a second language, a vernacular ripe with the heart and soul of everyday people. This is an observation of both strangers an’ kin, sometimes smashed glass of people’s lives reflecting a beautiful constellation under a Black Country sky.
ROY McFARLANE
An authentic Black Country exploration of the liminal spaces in sexuality, the supernatural, family, class and, of course, the Black Country. Reading the eloquent expression in our own dialect is a privilege, and the story alternately grips, thrills, warms and chills you. Our roots glow through the prose, and the ghosts of Netherton live again.
GEORGE FOURACRES
He is our Black Country guide to the relics, rituals, coping strategies of a defunct working class. Defiantly vernacular, written in dialect, we encounter the mythic, Germanic smith Wieland and his descendants in their haunts of pub, car park, footy pitch and wasteland, held captive and hamstrung by a tyranny of class and prejudice.
BOB BEAGRIE
R. M. Francis brings a powerful and stirring new voice to literature: he writes with muscle and nous about a world he knows intimately and cares about deeply. With an impeccable ear, perceptive eye, and humane sensibility, he renders that world in all its beauty, tragedy, and wonderful, captivating weirdness. He's what the Black Country has been waiting for.
PAUL MCDONALD
R. M. Francis manages to capture the very essence of place. There’s a sense that his writing comes from somewhere deep. The imagery is always bold and the language distinctive. If you’ve never been to the Black Country, Francis will take you there.
KERRY HADLEY-PRYCE
Transitions is fuckin' brilliant. Truly; not one word out of place. Beauty in what others might label as sordor. Right up my street. Blown away by it, into a better place, and who could ask for anything more from words?
NIALL GRIFFITHS
So much contemporary poetry is divorced from the bodily instincts and functions. What Orpheus is doing is an anchoring without loosing the intellectual. It has the wild desirous energy of Whitman, the free flow of lyrical instinct from Ginsberg, the nihilism and disillusionment of Larkin, the attention to craft and its purposeful deviation of Auden and touches of the de-familiarisation of Redgrove. And an element that owns all of this and more and says 'this is mine'. It is dense and very resonant. A 21st century howl.
BOB BEAGRIE
WOWed & alarmed audience members in equal measure, & that’s exactly what we want from a headliner!
CHARLEY BARNES
The Black Country of R. M. Francis’s first full collection, Subsidence, is multi-layered, filmic and by turns unflinching and tender. The poems jump off the page, not to meet you half way, but with an irresistible challenge. Sit, it seems to say, stand or slouch, but listen, what I’m about to tell you is important, a record of my territory, my people, their history, myths and language. Indeed, the collection is a glorious musical score of Black Country dialect with all its complex tone colours and rhythms. There is drama here, political and personal where borders invisible and real are investigated and mused upon. Borderlands of class, the liminal aching space occupied by those who are not easily categorised are cracked open and witnessed. Masculinity is explored, male friendship with its specific codes are tenderly unpicked and we glimpse how men of this unique place are made, love, carry silence, and go about their work. Francis regularly gives full reign to his pretension busting gene which runs like a bright thread through the collection. Francis is an unsentimental and expansive poet, clear-eyed, hard-minded and as strong and steadfast as the ground he sprang from.
ROZ GODDARD
Mat Riches for Sphinx Review
Michael Jarvie Review - Bostin' Fittle
Mad Hatter Reviews
Fly On The Wall review
Dense Weed Review
Charlotte Gann for Sphinx Review
LUKE KENNARD
A love letter spoken in his mother tongue, refusing to be a second language, a vernacular ripe with the heart and soul of everyday people. This is an observation of both strangers an’ kin, sometimes smashed glass of people’s lives reflecting a beautiful constellation under a Black Country sky.
ROY McFARLANE
An authentic Black Country exploration of the liminal spaces in sexuality, the supernatural, family, class and, of course, the Black Country. Reading the eloquent expression in our own dialect is a privilege, and the story alternately grips, thrills, warms and chills you. Our roots glow through the prose, and the ghosts of Netherton live again.
GEORGE FOURACRES
He is our Black Country guide to the relics, rituals, coping strategies of a defunct working class. Defiantly vernacular, written in dialect, we encounter the mythic, Germanic smith Wieland and his descendants in their haunts of pub, car park, footy pitch and wasteland, held captive and hamstrung by a tyranny of class and prejudice.
BOB BEAGRIE
R. M. Francis brings a powerful and stirring new voice to literature: he writes with muscle and nous about a world he knows intimately and cares about deeply. With an impeccable ear, perceptive eye, and humane sensibility, he renders that world in all its beauty, tragedy, and wonderful, captivating weirdness. He's what the Black Country has been waiting for.
PAUL MCDONALD
R. M. Francis manages to capture the very essence of place. There’s a sense that his writing comes from somewhere deep. The imagery is always bold and the language distinctive. If you’ve never been to the Black Country, Francis will take you there.
KERRY HADLEY-PRYCE
Transitions is fuckin' brilliant. Truly; not one word out of place. Beauty in what others might label as sordor. Right up my street. Blown away by it, into a better place, and who could ask for anything more from words?
NIALL GRIFFITHS
So much contemporary poetry is divorced from the bodily instincts and functions. What Orpheus is doing is an anchoring without loosing the intellectual. It has the wild desirous energy of Whitman, the free flow of lyrical instinct from Ginsberg, the nihilism and disillusionment of Larkin, the attention to craft and its purposeful deviation of Auden and touches of the de-familiarisation of Redgrove. And an element that owns all of this and more and says 'this is mine'. It is dense and very resonant. A 21st century howl.
BOB BEAGRIE
WOWed & alarmed audience members in equal measure, & that’s exactly what we want from a headliner!
CHARLEY BARNES
The Black Country of R. M. Francis’s first full collection, Subsidence, is multi-layered, filmic and by turns unflinching and tender. The poems jump off the page, not to meet you half way, but with an irresistible challenge. Sit, it seems to say, stand or slouch, but listen, what I’m about to tell you is important, a record of my territory, my people, their history, myths and language. Indeed, the collection is a glorious musical score of Black Country dialect with all its complex tone colours and rhythms. There is drama here, political and personal where borders invisible and real are investigated and mused upon. Borderlands of class, the liminal aching space occupied by those who are not easily categorised are cracked open and witnessed. Masculinity is explored, male friendship with its specific codes are tenderly unpicked and we glimpse how men of this unique place are made, love, carry silence, and go about their work. Francis regularly gives full reign to his pretension busting gene which runs like a bright thread through the collection. Francis is an unsentimental and expansive poet, clear-eyed, hard-minded and as strong and steadfast as the ground he sprang from.
ROZ GODDARD
Mat Riches for Sphinx Review
Michael Jarvie Review - Bostin' Fittle
Mad Hatter Reviews
Fly On The Wall review
Dense Weed Review
Charlotte Gann for Sphinx Review