Matthew Stewart weaves his ways through poetry
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...
I'm very grateful to Maurice Devitt at the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies for posting my poem, ‘Heading for the Airport’, on their Facebook page (see here). I gather it's now garnered over 22,000 views and more than 270 likes. Who said there's no latent readership for poetry...?!
