The poems below were shared on Twitter for Black Bough Poetry’s Top Tweet Tuesday.Recent challenges have been to write very short, imagist poems on a variety of themes – including weather and wonder and birds. All but one were written specially for this – often the night before. Sometimes they work out quite well –…
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,…
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.
‘Street Sailing’ voyaging around the world. A selection of readers’ photos.
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…
Poetry, Bloody Hell – to paraphrase a dour, fantastically successful Scot (if only he’d joined Bristol City in 1986). I am now, a published poet, with a book under my belt. Despite still having to pinch myself, this feels a huge validation. Six months ago I wrote a post concerning imposter syndrome. This one is as…
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…
For a long time I didn’t write anything at all. That’s not to say I didn’t think about writing – I always went around noticing things – such as, fascinating, but fleeting casts of light, couples in the street, not obviously arguing but with faces that suggested, not all was well. A Bristol, or a London hill, its character, buildings, history. The atmosphere of a pub. A bird in a tree, an overgrown graveyard. An unassuming lane…
Welcome to the second in a series of posts on my poetry practice, as publication of my first collection – with Black Bough hoves ever closer into view. Notes on Form. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but my understanding of how a poem works, or how its construction works, in a technical sense, remains a…
I have my first poetry book coming out in spring 2023, with Black Bough Poetry. That’s a pretty big and thrilling thing. I get excited enough about individual poems being accepted by a magazine or website, but a book? Bloody hell. It’s especially surprising to me, as I stopped writing poetry in any serious way…
A quick word about Imposter Syndrome.
This is a poem I shared on #TopTweetTuesday, an inclusive forum on Twitter for sharing poems every Tuesday – a lovely initiative from https://www.blackboughpoetry.com My ever-present, sleeve-tugging inner punster, almost had me call it Plainsong – but I resisted. It’s a familiar tree, though perhaps not as celebrated as some others. I actually prefer its…
Richly Evocative 