Skimmed past the latest bleatings from unfeasible PM Rishi Sunak this morning on a newsfeed. Apparently the UK is now subject to mob rule. Bit of a disaster if true – especially if you represent the government who’ve been in power the last 14 years and really ought not to have let this happen. What…
Four more poems, first shared via Blackbough Poetry’s Top Tweet Tuesday. The honest A-Z The honest A-Z is filled with empty pages, roads unwalked, unprinted. Areas ignored and little-known shrink, or vanish altogether. Whole postcodes are erased through lack of interest. While places you have loved, expand. Side-streets stretched into tree-lined boulevards. Market stalls, grimy corner pubs, exes’ flats, old…
Indifference There is a global oceanic current systemknown as Amoc. An acronym that stands for– Atlantic Meriodonal Overturning Circulation.Amoc has no view on meeting spending limits.It makes no jibes about what percentage constitutes a woman. Amoc is unconcerned with fickle memories of old men, which redrawn ancient borders are the right ones, or whose children have been left…
Writing poetry can be a strange and frustrating exercise. Sometimes lines, or even entire poems arrive like a kind of gift from the subconscious and you must record them on whatever comes to hand. Occasionally you might get one that feels complete from the off. Though in my experience this is rare. Even dreamlike poems,…
Three new poems: M4 at night, The next train, Moonset.
Four recently written poems, first shared via Blackbough Poetry’s Top Tweet Tuesday. A stunning fungi covered stump, golden Roman helmets, an attack on an iconic tree and a small French town in autumn.
A very thoughtful, considered review of my poetry collection ‘Street Sailing’ in Briefly Write. Click the link to read it on their site. ‘In ‘Street Sailing’, Matt Gilbert looks anew upon familiar streetscapes. His reader can’t not keep looking’ ‘Street Sailing’ is a puzzle with many readings and many answers. Matt Gilbert is a skilful setter,…
A poem about emotional austerity.
“a remarkable work for a first collection: thoughtful, profound, engaging, beautifully crafted, fresh”
Poetry Review: Rebel Blood Cells by Jamie Woods
A poetic-prose celebration of my local greasy spoon – The Electric Cafe. A classic of its kind. This first appeared in slightly different form within my feature on Black Bough Poetry’s Silver Branch series.
After a brilliant online launch in May, I’m having a live launch on 29th June at The Bookseller Crow, Crystal Palace.
Guests – Joe Duggan & Matthew M C Smith will both be reading, along with me.
I’ll also be interviewed about the book by Karen McCleod.
Tickets £5 – including a drink.
Delighted to have a poem ‘Highly Commended’ in the I Am Writing Poetry Competition. Extra special for me because it came off the back of this year’s I Am In Print Festival in Bristol. Here’s the poem… Early Walkers Two figures shimmer on the path ahead, struggling with a skittish charge, a team of walking echoes. Perhaps…
Review: The Birds, The Rabbits, The Trees by Briony Collins – shared as part of Black Bough Poetry’s Top Tweet Tuesday on Twitter to boost fellow poets.
Delighted to have a feature about ‘Street Sailing’ in Bristol 24/7′
Originally posted on The Wombwell Rainbow:
Matt Gilbert is a freelance copywriter, who also writes a blog at richlyevocative.net about place, books, poetry and other distractions. Originally from Bristol, he currently gets his fill of urban hills in South East London. He has had poems published by Atrium, Anthropocene, Finished Creatures and The Storms among…
My debut poetry book ‘Street Sailing’ is now out in the wild. Cover art by Ben Pearce. Published by Black Bough Poetry.
Most people, I’d imagine, who write poetry want someone else to read it. When it comes to individual poems the process is fairly straightforward, if at times frustrating. You research a suitable publication, or editor, then send them stuff. After this, the waiting. Waiting. Waiting, followed eventually by dancing, or raging, depending on the outcome. …
Part Four in my blog post series about my poetry practice: Assembling a collection
Having admitted in previous posts in this series that I don’t always know exactly what I’m doing when setting out to write a poem, I must now confess I find the art of putting a collection together even more mysterious…
Broken Sleep Books, 2022. £8.99. A little like the compulsion to press a bruise, McPherson’s collection brings an irresistible tenderness together with pain. As the title suggests, beasts stalk the pages. These are not, though, charismatic, or cute, but often symbolic creatures – rough, wounded and bewildered. Here are memories of house spiders entwined in…
Richly Evocative 