A Love Poem to Libraries

A love letter to libraries, in the form of a poem. ‘Library Stamps’ by Matt Gilbert

Unfulfilled Playlist

A while ago, I wrote a poem about the experience of buying records in shops, as a kind of post-streaming, tribute to the irreplaceable, tactile, sensory atmosphere of physical stores. The poem ‘Unfulfilled Playlist’ has now been published on Wild Court, where you can read it.

‘Street Sailing’ – Live Launch June 29 Bookseller Crow, Crystal Palace

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.

‘Early Walkers’ A highly commended poem…

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…

‘Street Sailing’ makes the local press back in Bristol…

Delighted to have a feature about ‘Street Sailing’ in Bristol 24/7′

Wombwell Rainbow Book Interviews: Street Sailing by Matt Gilbert

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…

Street Sailing – my debut poetry book is now out.

My debut poetry book ‘Street Sailing’ is now out in the wild. Cover art by Ben Pearce. Published by Black Bough Poetry.

On foot to the UFO station

In my mental landscape, Bristol is a city of hills, not towers. Although, one local tower – the Purdown Transmitter, or BT Tower loomed large in my imagination. Not least because it looked more like some kind of alien space station, than a building that belonged at the north eastern edge of 1980s Bristol.

Please don’t call it a blogiversary: lessons from a decade of blogging

If I could travel back in time to visit the me of ten years ago, when I started writing this blog, to tell myself that he/I would still be doing it a decade later, I doubt I would have been believed. That I would be writing this anniversary piece under the shadow of a global coronavirus pandemic, as the UK entered its third national lockdown in a year, would have been a greater surprise than the fact Richly Evocative was still going – but only slightly.

Growing up in a city that was never there

The day Bristol Museum and Art Gallery’s Chinese Room disappeared, was the day I first realised that places, like people, can change. It came as something of a shock.

A half-hidden route to the past: Bristol’s Johnny Ball Lane

For a long time it didn’t have a name. It was just the lane that ran along the back of Mum and Dad’s bookshop…Eventually, I was to discover that there was a lot more to this old city route than I could possibly have imagined.

Saving Pages: A selection of vintage bookmarks

As a child of second-hand booksellers I had ready access to books and their offshoot – bookmarks. I recently rediscovered a box filled with some that once upon a time I had hoarded.

All back to Asselega’s place

Is it possible to be haunted by a place? I think that I may be. In this case it is Ashley Vale in Bristol – an exceptional urban oasis caught between the tracks, containing allotments, woods, hilltops and a pub next door to a farm.

Up Brandon Hill!

Wherever you find yourself in Bristol, a hill will be lying in wait. South Bristol even has a whole area seemingly named in jokey reference to its steep streets – Totterdown.

My favourite though, will always be Brandon Hill – scene of public protest, fake duels, restrictive carpet beating and for a long time, hermit’s cells.

Here’s Where The Story Begins: The Sundays’ Reading, Writing and Arithmetic at 25.

In my teens being there mattered. Having, or at least knowing about, the latest album RIGHT NOW was crucial. To my shame I was late to the Cure and late to the Smiths and countless others. But with the Sundays I got there bang on time. As soon as their first album was released in early 1990 I went out and bought it. That made them mine.

Shopping for identity: a trip down Norwood Road

You can tell a lot about a place from the local shops.
Especially on Norwood Road.

Along the not so old straight track

Between the back gardens and traffic jammed streets of North London runs an extraordinary green path: Parkland Walk, once a rail line to the suburbs, now a tree-lined escape from the city, in the middle of a city.

Behind Bristol’s Closed Doors

A new way to go behind the scenes of some of Bristol’s most historic buildings.

Into the Narroways – a landscape of words

Landscapes, imagined and remembered, have always played a central role in literature.

The fascinating relationship between writers and the British landscape is currently explored in a new exhibition at The British Library: Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands. Here are some thoughts it inspired.