‘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.
Going up a hill to come back down: in search of poetic inspiration
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…
Goldfinched, Hiram Maxim’s Grave & In the shelter of the shallows – three recent poems
Three poems recently shared on Top Tweet Tuesday. A goldfinch appears to change everything, the rattles from a mischief of magpies, perhaps, turn ominous and upstream in a city crowd.
Urban rewilding & Everyday object
“Those woods on the ridge,
through the window,
if watched from a certain angle,
will roll over the roads,
untamed the suburbs,
reclaim the shape
of old maps…”
Street sailing, Wall v tree, The next service is due
Three poems recently shared via Black Bough Poetry’s @Toptweettuesday on Twitter.If you enjoy reading this, I also recently had some other poems published by Ink Sweat & Tears and Briefly Write – click the links to view. If you’re really, really interested, even more can be found in the Published Elsewhere page on this very…
The lost cenotes of South East London
A little bit of fun. I shared this recently on Twitter for Black Bough Poetry’s #TopTweetTuesday.
The Keypad Thieves
Normally I send poems out to magazines and websites, before I put them on here, hoping an editor will take them, so it’s not only me who thinks there’s something in them. With this one, I have no idea where I’d send it, or what chance it would have – perhaps it would be seen…
Suddenly, a mini urban meadow
It’s easy to forget sometimes that “nature” isn’t always, or only, to be found somewhere else. I was reminded of this with a visual jolt from a poppy this morning. On a road about five minutes’ walk away from mine, between the foot of the iron railings of a factory (makers of corrosion prevention and…
Waiting in the boneyard: Abney Park
Stamford Hill Motors is not the most romantic of destinations, but I always feel a frisson of excitement when I have to go there. I used to live nearby but no longer, so the annual MOT has become an excuse to visit one of my old North London haunts. It also gives me a legitimate reason to simply…
Escape to a wilder city: London as National Park
I must admit that when I first heard about the campaign to make London the world’s first National Park City, I thought it was a joke.
And yet the more I thought about it, the more interesting the concept became.
Make a break for the trees: Crystal Palace’s Stambourne Woodland Walk
It gives me hope a place like this. A small brown sign outside the Queen’s Hotel, Church Road the only local clue. Stambourne Woods this way, down that gravel drive and through the gate. On the house next door another sign gives red framed warning of a moose who isn’t there. This sliver of…
The Road to One Tree Hill: Part 2
Often its an image, or sense, of the physical presence of a place that draws me to it, but in the case of One Tree Hill, it was the name that attracted me.
A name that seemed so impossibly resonant that I had to see for myself whether the actual hill could ever live up to it.
In between Norwood
The pervading spirit of some places hangs quite obviously in the air. Even if you’re only passing through and not looking very hard, the distinctive atmosphere will soon make itself apparent.
West Norwood isn’t one of those places.
How to give a city the slip without leaving: a sidle through Nottingham
In every city I’ve lived in, I try finding alternative routes through them that avoid streets where possible and move through parks and other green spaces instead. Here’s a short, but worthwhile one for Nottingham.
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.
The oasis round the back of the station
Every area of urban green space has it’s own particular history. However, in a general sense, it’s probably true to say that the reason for a specific site’s continued existence will be one of three: it’s a cherished survivor, it’s hung on by chance, or it’s been deliberately created in a spot that was previously home to something else.
Deep inside the forest round the corner.
Granville Road Spinney is a short walk from Finsbury Park tube. Just minutes from busy, grimy, North London is a place where bats, hedgehogs, frogs and foxes and more can be found.
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.
Richly Evocative 