Who is looking at, listening to and leaning on whom? And what is left of looking, listening and leaning in what is ironically referred to as the post ultimate glade? Thompson, with understated assertiveness, doesn’t answer these questions, but the poems in The Visitor’s Guest changed the way I had to walk around the block this morning. Thompson’s writing opens up a space with which I’m half familiar - perhaps it’s the sense of honesty which underlies his slanted lyrical stance - but which continues to surprise. Many of these poems engage with ‘love’, as a perception, as a verb, but to say so underestimates them. Visceral, tangential, with a genuine sense of belief / refusal to believe. You might think that you’ve arrived but, most of all, how interesting it is trying to get there.
- Lucy Burnett