Matthew Paul

Here in the UK it’s National Poetry Day. It isn’t really my cup of tea, but if it gets more people buying and reading good poetry then what’s not to like? In that vein, since every other poet is doing so today, I thought I’d do a flagrant piece of self-promotion by saying that it’s… Continue reading National Poetry Day →

Yesterday was my 54th birthday. With Covid restrictions in place, it was inevitably a rather quiet one; not that I would have lasted till the 10 o’clock pub curfew anyway. I was chuffed to receive a copy of the lovely-looking 14 Magazine, edited by Richard Skinner, in which I have a poem called ‘The Bidding’.… Continue reading September stuff →

Six months on from the start of Lockdown in England, I’ve been reflecting on the good things which I’ve experienced during that period. Here is a list, in no particular order.The heightened awareness of mortality caused by the scandalously high Covid death rates in the UK, USA and other countries run by right-wing fools has… Continue reading The last six months →

I’m writing this from my old friend Michael’s flat in St Leonard’s, which is by far the furthest I’ve been since before Lockdown. It’s lovely to be able to see (and hear) the Channel, though that view isn’t always so rosy: Michael says you can sometimes see boats full of migrants drifting towards the shore… Continue reading Channelling →

Over on the Snapshot Press website, two new free e-books are available: a chapbook of haiku by Debbie Strange and one of tanka by George Swede. Respectively, they are Canada’s finest haiku and tanka poets, so it’s fitting that they have been published simultaneously. Both are brilliant books and highly recommended. In these weird times,… Continue reading New e-books from Snapshot Press →

Yesterday I took a train or two to Dorking, one of several lovely Surrey towns which have a Georgian heart (though no doubt the prosperity which enabled that loveliness derived, at least in part, from the profits of slavery). Outside Dorking Halls, AKA ‘Mole Valley’s top entertainment venue’, as the local council boasts, and which… Continue reading On Vaughan Williams and John Greening →

stone pine— a golf buggy skirts the parched fairway horse chestnut shade the tiptoes buck stretches to pilfer leaves no room on the Thames for swans to sprint into flight— loosestrife and tansy

I have two poems on the sun-drenched Odyssey poetry website today: one new one, part of a sequence responding to the life and work of Edward Burra; and one from my collection.

There is a new batch of reviews up on Sphinx, among which are no less than three excellent reviews of Richie McCaffery’s new pamphlet, First Hare, and my review of Ben Ray's New Poets’ Prize-winning pamphlet, The Kindness of the Eel. As ever, Sphinx is a tremendous resource for anyone looking for new poetry pamphlets.

Here are some of my summer haiku from over the years:   summer sales a Caravaggio chalked on the kerb * heat haze a tangerine milk float jumping the lights * summer fete the Punch and Judy man losing his voices * school’s out the riverbank flush with tansy florets * behind the long pebble… Continue reading Some summer haiku →