Properly chuffed to report I have a poem in the June issue of The New Criterion! You can read it via this link.
Here's the gorgeous poster that the Madrid Review have created for my forthcoming event...
I'll be reading in Madrid on 27th May. As the guest poet at The Madrid Review Live's event, titled ‘Vinos and Verse with Matthew Stewart’, I'm looking forward to giving an outing to my more Hispanic and wine-related poems, while also taking part in a Q&A with James Hartley, the editor of The Madrid Review.
Chuffed to report that I have another new poem in The Spectator this week. You can read it on their website by following this link.
I'm delighted to feature today a poem by Ricky Monahan Brown, taken from his recent pamphlet, Drawer of Letters (Broken Sleep Books, 2025).
The piece I've chosen is titled ‘Drawer’, so its significance within the manuscript as a whole is pretty clear. I don't tend to be a fan of poems that use the passive voice a lot, nor of poems that don't contain any main verbs. However, those two devices are actually used to terrific effect here, holding back narrative details that the reader is allowed to fill in, such as the identity of the protagonists. Meanwhile, progressively tweaked repetition is clearly a driving force, used deftly, moving us forward without any punctuation towards the poem's emotional core.
I hope you enjoy it, and please consider visiting the Broken Sleep website (see here) to grab a copy of the pamphlet if you do...
Drawer
a
drawer made of letters
letters
made of lined paper
letters
made of hand-cut paper
letters
made of thick Egyptian sheets
letters
made of translucent skin
letters
bound by bulldog clips
letters
secured by steely staples
letters
gathered by woven strings
letters
stuck by elastic gum bands
letters
woken by a slashing pen
letters
leavened by a smiling blot
letters
smudged by a dragging hand
letters
blurred by <illegible>
letters
built by paragraph slabs
paragraphs
formed from frilly sentences
sentences
verbed into brief existence
verbs
that describe a life
and
a letter made of words
made
of letters
like
L
and
E
and
A
and
V
Pablo García Casado is one of the finest poets in Spain. In fact, he's just won the prestigious Premio de la Crítica. As a consequence, I'm especially pleased that he should have selected a poem from Whatever You Do, Just Don't for publication in his Daily Poem feature on Facebook, Instagram and X.
Moreover, not only has he translated it into Spanish himself, but he's also granted me permission to reproduce it here too. ¡Gracias, Pablo...!
In the context of a review culture in which hot takes, pseudo blurbs and cod-academic posturing are rife, it's a huge breath of fresh air to encounter a critic who engages with a poet and their poetry, who gets to grips with the nuts and bolts of every line, who reaches far beyond a mere description of thematic concerns, all without lapsing into jargon or self-aggrandisement.
This is why I'm thoroughly recommending Suzanna Fitzpatrick's The Deeper Read today. It's a regular Substack where she delves deeply into one collection at a time. Her writing and insights are terrific in their clarity, worthy of a wider audience and way more interesting than most reviews that can be found in major journals, even the essay-length ones, so I'm not taking restricted words counts as an excuse here. In fact, Fitzpatrick's showing up a fair few bigger names in The Deeper Read. I suggest you explore its archive via this link, but with one warning: it's likely to provoke you into purchases of poetry books that you'd never heard of and suddenly need...!
Hugely privileged that renowned poet and critic Sheenagh Pugh should have written a terrific review of Whatever Yuu Do, Just Don´t. You can read it via this link, but here's a taster to whet your appetite...
...Brexit and its aftermath do not crop up much in UK poetry, but then few UK poets have this perspective on it...this is an unusual collection, from a viewpoint we do not often see, and correspondingly enlightening.
Pleased to report that I have a poem, titled ‘Brambleton Avenue’, in the new issue of Poetry London...
A so-called FB friend (who will remain anonymous, so no fishing!) told me to my face the other day that my promotion of my books was far better than the poetry inside them, implying that I was less of a poet for getting my stuff out there. I can fully understand why a poet might feel uncomfortable about promoting their work, but I can't comprehend how this might then lead to their denigrating other poets who do so.
I was stunned by his words, though I recovered sufficiently to reply that his attitude was representative of the worst of U.K poetry. Which reminds me. Anyone up for a signed copy?! If so, just drop me an email. The address is in my blogger profile...
Not judgemental, but curious, observational and slightly concerned, this post will tackle the growing question of submission caps.
By submission caps, I'm referring to a limit of submissions that poetry journals will often place on their Submittable call-out for a specific issue. This decision is down to two main factors: Submittable's charging system and the editors' capacity for processing poems.
The consequence of these submission caps, however, is that supposedly lengthy submissions windows for mags that use them pretty much go straight out of the window. This is because, for instance, if a journal opens to submissions for a month but reaches its limit on Submittable after a few days, those windows are hugely shortened. And then it requires an operation of scramble and dash (or military-level planning!) on the part of the poet to ensure their poems reach the editors before that limit is hit.
And a further potential consequence is the watering down of the quality of submissions. The best poets aren't necessarily the ones that are hustling and chasing submission opportunities, poised at their keyboards to press send as soon as a window opens. The standard of the journal might well suffers.
Right, so that's an incipient problem recognised. But what about a potential solution? And that's where things get extremely tricky. Without submission caps, editors' entire waking hours would entail wading through thousands of poems in search of gems, their reading skills getting ever more jaded. And any step away from open calls would dismantle any journal's claims to be seeking out new talent and fresh poetry.
Deep down, it seems that more and more people hold serious aspirations to getting their poetry published in quality journals. Which is possibly a good thing. If only all of them were buying books at the same rate as they submit their own work. Though that's another massive can of worms, so we won't go there again today.
What do you think of submission caps? How might poetry journals best cope with the huge number of subimssions that want to knock on their doors?
On top of my forthcoming readings in London, St Albans and Bedford (see previous post), I'm now delighted to announce an additional event.
I'll be the featured poet for the Oxford Poetry Circle on 26th February. The venue is the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities and the timings are 7-9 p.m.. Here's a poster with all the details...
Right, so I’ve got three in-person
readings coming up. The details are as follows:
Saturday 28th Feb. Guest
Poet at Ver Poets in St Albans (with Mat Riches). Venue is St Albans General
Library, kicking off at 11 a.m.. This is a free event.
Monday 2nd March. Rogue
Strands Poetry Reading at The Devereux in London (with Mat Riches, George
Szirtes, Christopher Reid, Jemma Borg and Katharine Towers). This event begins
at 6.45 p.m. and it’s free.
Tuesday 3rd March. Guest
Poet at Ouse Muse in Bedford. The venue is the Eagle Bookshop, starting at 8
p.m..
It would be great to see you there!
Endings to poems that tap it into an open goal seem to me far less interesting than ones that bend it into the top corner when the keeper wasn't even expecting a shot.
The book knows that, just like humans, it's destined to be born and die alone. But it also knows (again, just like humans) that it would far prefer to be accompanied in the meantime.
The book trembles with anticipation when the poet finally places it in an envelope and heads for the post office, launching it on a journey to its reader, though that's nothing in comparison to the feeling of being held at last, its pages caressed and maybe even folded back if one or two of the poems really hit home...
