Scan by John Fraser Williams

Scan

This debut collection is sharply focused poems journeys from its lyrical home in the north Wales landscape to interior places, bringing to light the hidden and unsettling. At its heart is the long sequence, ‘Scan‘ which tells us, ‘These are the maps of circumstances’ in which ‘the signs flash by’. In this lucid, accomplished poetry the signs, the hidden, and what is not said are in turn held up to the light by a poet who sees through the outer layers to something deep and visceral. John Fraser Williams is a poet who keeps ‘the oath: not to kill amazement’, able to communicate a sense of awe and mystery without any loss of clarity. Humane and meticulous, a writer of highly crafted lyric poetry, deeply rooted in a sense of place, but able to push his work to the boundaries of language, Fraser Williams delights and unsettles. Accessible, but nonetheless profound and moving, this is an extraordinarily accomplished debut.

John Fraser Williams is widely published in small press magazines, including appearances in Poetry Wales; recognised by Literature Wales as a key emerging writer he was awarded a New Writer Bursary in 2009.