Author: Matthew Paul

In his paean to Claire Everett’s ‘editors’ choice’ haiku in the September 2018 issue of The Heron’s Nest, esteemed American haiku poet John Stevenson makes special reference to Claire’s use of the word ‘skedaddles’ and states that he’s not seen it in a haiku before. It certainly can’t be common, and I can’t definitively claim… Continue reading Skedaddling →

I’ll be reading a short, eight to 10 minute set this Sunday afternoon, at the Eyewear Publishing winter party, The Windmill, Blenheim Gardens, Brixton, SW2 5BZ. The doors open at 2pm. 

My Sunday running route for the last few months has changed to one that loops round to Sandown Park and Esher, then up to Hinchley Wood, Long Ditton and back to Thames Ditton. The pleasure of the route lies principally in the fact that it takes in three hills, two of them long enough to provide… Continue reading On Running Again →

So many of my poems are concerned with the past that I sometimes wonder whether I will ever be able to write well about the present, about contemporary life. But then I say to myself that the past refracts upon the present, and the future, so I needn’t fret. I do fixate on how the… Continue reading Writing the Past →

Below are the last reviews I wrote in my stint as Reviews Editor (and Co-Editor) for Presence. Stuart Quine, Sour Pickle Alba Publishing, PO Box 266, Uxbridge, UB9 5NX, UK; £12/€14/$16; ISBN 9781910185957; http://www.albapublishing.com Hamish Ironside, Three Blue Beans in a Blue Bladder Iron Press, 5 Marden Terrace, Cullercoats, North Shields, NE30 4PD, UK; £6;… Continue reading Reviews in Presence #62 →

HALF-TIME, BOXING DAY While the not-so-super Superhoops are tucking into Lucozade and oranges, the crush in the gents’ is the usual bastard. Nominally banned, language and smoking give it large behind the stand. On the pitch, some wrapped-up kid – ‘our matchday mascot’ – loves his really crap kickabout with Jude the Cat. Next is… Continue reading Christmas poem #4 →

MANTRA The number 213 and the redness of its rear are all I see of the disappearing bus, before another one slips the ropes of the hill, heaving with posh kids from a different school, with stripier blazers and caps. I find half a seat upstairs, right at the back in the smokiest part, next… Continue reading Christmas poem #3 →

SIX ITEMS OR FEWER The bloke at the check-out tells the listening cashier he’s the last of his family-line; talks about his sweet tooth, how he really mustn’t buy a Christmas pud this year, as there will only be him to slather it in whisky, smear on clotted cream and all too slowly eat it.… Continue reading Christmas poem #2 →

CHRISTMAS KISSES AT ST PANCRAS They lean like emperor penguins over their summer-sky-hoodied son and the whole windwhirled concourse looks, because the zeal of every au revoir kiss demands double-takes from all of us travellers, whose thoughts progress to the boy’s exclusion, and memories of wondering whether and when that love-thing between your parents might… Continue reading Christmas poem #1 →

I have two poems in the winter issue of the excellent journal, The High Window, edited by David Cooke and Anthony Costello.