Against backcloths which include Utah where he lived for a year and the Dee estuary of north Wales, his home area, Davies' fascination with other people has sparked a diversity of forms, voices, stories.

Underlying his variety, there is too an urgently sustained focus. The tension between rootedness and movement, two ways of being, makes for a collection that is itself a story from what Outposts called "this interesting and accomplished poet."

Flight Patterns is John Davies' fourth collection, the first since The Visitor's Book, for which he shared with Vikram Seth the Poetry Society's Alice Hunt Bartlett Award in 1986.

"Above all this is a book with itchy feet, a restless book that asks questions about language and place and who we are"
Gillian Clarke

"John Davies might be called a traditional poet - but there's nothing remotely tame in his traditionalism... Davies is like Walcott in this, using the tradition, melting it, reforging it"
Planet

John Davies was brought up in Port Talbot, South Wales, and in Prestatyn where he taught English. He has also taught in Michigan and Washington. In 1986 The Visitor's Book, his third collection, was joint winner of the Poetry Society's major award, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize. John Davies is also a talented wood carver.