In less than two weeks’ time, I’ll be joining my fellow participants on the Poetry Business Writing School, led by Ann and Peter Sansom. I’m really thrilled to have been selected to take part. It’s for poets working towards their second collection. We’ve been paired up to give each other emailed feedback on poems in progress – and that’s already been a very fruitful exercise – before we all meet in person. I know from attending Poetry Business workshops that Ann and Peter, who are wonderful poets themselves of course, are brilliant at getting poets to write well and at offering insightful and helpful constructive feedback. With the added input from some excellent poets, it should make for a fabulous 18 months’-worth of writing, reading, discussion and what-not.
Meanwhile, this Sunday, I’ll be one of the readers at the launch of Eyewear Publishing’s Best New British and Irish Poets anthology for 2017, edited by Luke Kennard. I’m chuffed to be in the anthology for the second year running. This year, my poem is ‘Duckwalking in West Berlin’, featuring events which happened 30 years ago. Details of the launch are here. With the great Todd Swift as MC and Luke himself among the featured readers, I’m sure it will be a fantastic afternoon.
Matthew Paul 