Thin Places

By R. M. Francis

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My faith became gigantic …
we felt him walking among us:

deep in man
the love of thin places. To touch
its stones is prayer, is momentary
communion; the thin place multiplies.

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R. M. Francis is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Wolverhampton. He's the author of two novels, Bella and The Wrenna, published with Wild Pressed Books, and a poetry collection, Subsidence, with Smokestack Books. In 2019 he was the inaugural David Bradshaw Writer in Residence at the University of Oxford and in 2020 was Poet in Residence for The Black Country Geological Society. In 2023 Poe Girl Publishing produced his collection of horror stories, Ameles / Currents of Unmindfulness. His academic research focuses on place-identity in the Black Country and has been published in a number of edited collections; he co-edited the book, Smell, Memory and Literature in the Black Country (Palgrave McMillan) with Professor Sebastian Groes.

Francis' other work on Foreshadow:
Man of Sorrows (Poetry, October 2024)
Prayerfully (Poetry, October 2024)
Anthony (Poetry, November 2024)
Shroud (Poetry, November 2024)