No News: 90 poets reflect on a unique BBC newscast
I'm please to report that I have a poem in an excellent new anthology from Recent Work Press. Titled No News: 90 poets reflect on a unique BBC newscast, it features my work alongside pieces by the likes of Maura Dooley, Ian Duhig, Philip Gross, Glyn Maxwell, Ian McMillan, Helen Mort and Robert Pinsky, etc, etc. A brief description of the project reads as follows...
On 18 April, 1930, at 8.45pm, the BBC announced: ‘There is no news.’ Piano music played for the rest of the 15-minute bulletin.
90 poets from across the world reflect on a this marker of a time before the 24-hour news cycle, before the ubiquity of news and information that seems to haunt us through our daily lives. Through this anthology there are poems that capture that moment of nothing but piano music making up an evening news bulletin, poems that contrast this with today’s news, and personal stories grounded in the intervening years.
Moreover, the publishers asked me to record my poem for their YouTube channel. You can now watch the video here...!
Ten pounds gets you a signed copy of The Knives of Villalejo with free p&p!
Endorsement for The Knives of Villalejo
"Matthew Stewart is a poet of consolidation, truth, and freshness, with a mastertful sense of economy. His poems matter, and his first collection has been too long in coming. These poems have the rare quality of resonating a long way beyond their modest physical limits."
I live between Extremadura, Spain, and West Sussex, England. Full collection, The Knives of Villalejo, with Eyewear Publishing. Two pamphlets, both now sold out, with HappenStance Press. You can get in touch with me via e-mail: matthstew@gmail.com.
It’s a great pleasure to introduce this month’s guest poet Julie Mellor.
Julie holds a PhD in creative writing from Sheffield Hallam University and
has pub...
elshCan Peter Finch really be so successful as a poet and editor, and so
nice at the same time? In this episodic autobiography, Finch has kind words
for ev...
Happy New Year everyone. This haiku comes from Best Of Geppo which I’m
currently reviewing, and today is the right day to share it, at least in
this part o...
“Marcus. If Meton is stuck in bed upstairs for the foreseeable future, then
who’s doing the cooking?”
Who indeed? Meton the anarchic but brilliant chef ...
I was judging the Harborough District Poetry and Prose Competitions to
decide on the Junior Poet Laureate and Poet Laureate for the district for
2026 – 27 ...
“Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!” read my recent notification. “You
registered on WordPress.com 14 years ago. Thanks for flying with us. Keep
up the ...
Lyn and I seem to have spent a large chunk of our Christmas evenings this
year in the north of Ireland, Belfast to be precise, courtesy of watching
Say Not...
I wasn’t going to do a chart for the end of the year…all a bit of a
busman’s holiday and the like, but the arrival this week of the wonderful
new issue of ...
CHRISTMAS THANK-YOU LETTER Thank you for the flat-pack
Build-Your-Own-Garden-Gnome set.Thank you for the life-size model of Ronald
Reagan made of matchstic...
This brief review of my most recent chapbook, Walking Away (Dare-Gale
Press, 2025), has been written by Debasish Lahiri and recently appeared on
the websit...
At the heart of Deryn Rees-Jones’ new collection Hôtel Amour (Seren), there
is a sequence of twenty-four sonnets which flip for the first time into the
fir...
Poor Francis Thompson. His poem "The Hound of Heaven" speaks of a soul
pursued by the Divine. He must've lived exhausted. The poem tells of
fleeing the H...
Back in 2023 I had the privilege of reviewing Katy Mahon’s Some Indefinable
Cord (Dreich). The experience established her as one of my favourite
contempora...
Midnight Textures, Steve Spence, Aquifer, 2025, ISBN: 978-1-0684861-0-4,
£11.00 Safe Whispering, Peter Dent, Treadmill, 2024, no information
available onli...
I would warmly recommend D. M. Black’s translation of Dante’s Paradiso,
both to people who already know and love Dante and to those who don’t but
are ready...
Perhaps it is my southern hemisphere background, but I find it hard not to
feel gloomy in the cold, dark, dreary months of northern winter. This
December h...
One of the funniest episodes of last month was a friend telling me that,
coming on the Tube, he’d read one of the Poems on the Underground and
hadn’t bee...
First post of 2025...!
It's been a while since I've sent poems out into the world though I've been
writing away in the background. Anyway, I'm pleased t...
We’ve been away for a holiday – and a good rest after a turbulent time in
the last eighteen months, and on our way home, I achieved a life-goal (as
my youn...
I've a new essay over at the *North Sea Poets* substack, addressing the
decline of reviewing culture, the rise of the poetry prizes, artistic
standards a...
My husband and I recently visited David Austin Roses in Shropshire. It set
me thinking about why I love roses: the scent, the sweet-shop colours and
the si...
Little SongFirst year: words left, like Gods returning to the underworld.In
the second, I lived as if I we both were dead.The words returned around
year th...
My poetry pen has to be set aside for a while after a book comes out, or
allowed to rest under whatever I’m reading, listening to, looking at. This
happens...
My poetry pen has to be set aside for a while after a book comes out, or
allowed to rest under whatever I’m reading, listening to, looking at. This
happens...
Today is National Poetry Day in the UK, and this year's theme is 'Refuge'.
On a global scale, the world is experiencing the highest levels of
displaceme...
Generally Speaking (about Bookshops) Although there is undoubtedly a few
collections of poetry that are criminally bad, you wouldn’t head to the
crime se...
The concept of poetic ecological collapse has been widely discussed, and so
I add here only a few additional notes of personal reflection. Readers will
kno...
It’s been a while since I did once of these, but maybe there’s something
here to tempt you. Christmas is just around the corner… If you’re
interested in an...
I thought I'd posted this a couple of weeks back, and realise now that I
didn't, but better late than never – this is an excellent tribute to the
poet Ma...
No comments:
Post a Comment