'Death and the woman': looking at Francis Webb's 'Lament for St Maria Goretti'.

in what manner could one sustain, how could single save the visible, if not by dint of

creating the language of absence, of the invisible? Rilke

FRANCIS Webb's numbers is most often discussed in terminuss of its linguistic difficulty, its preoccupation with failed explorer figures and questions of national identity, and its affirmation of the poet's Catholic faith. It is certainly a densely crafted and linguistically mixed poetry, and at times Webb's choice and manipulation of metaphor and imagery tender a sense of disorienting impenetrability. notwithstanding as one 'slipping image' gives way to the nearest one finds that Webb's is a verse above all ...