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.
My local writers group began as a "Circle" in 1948. It removed "Circle"
from its name decades ago because of the connotations that "Circle" had
then. Tho...
One thing the heat seems to do is make me very lethargic. I was reading the
June issue of the Heron’s Nest last night, and as I always do, copying out
some...
“Break Room” is the name of a new reality show by an acclaimed director
where participants get shared use of a kitchenette for breaks during work.
Each par...
The New York Times has just recommended The Hague as a ‘cool’ destination.
A contrast with Barcelona and Paris where it’s 40 Celsius. The article
praises t...
This review of Charles Tomlinson’s The Change of Light, published by
Dare-Gale Press in 2025, first appeared in Acumen magazine, commissioned by
reviews’ e...
…I dream my bones crumble into dust, into ash, in earth, in fire.I dream of
the monstrous head of an ant magnified many times over, its jagged teeth,
leath...
My mother taught me to read using a set of word cards. I can see her
holding them up in front of me in the corner of the vicarage dining room in
the wint...
There is no doubt that Maria Cohut’s Multiple Exposures (Flight of the
DragonFly, 2026) is an impressive debut collection. Reading it, I was
reminded of Da...
*The Fall* by Penelope Curtis is the last book – following Farah Ali’s
*Telegraphy*, Erin Vincent’s *Fourteen Ways of Looking* and Mike Bradwell’s
*Axhol...
A candle is a powerful instant symbol that communicates across cultures and
languages with associations of light, imagination, remembrance, renewal and
hop...
In the latest, brilliant issue of The Dark Horse, there’s a really fine
double review by its editor Gerry Cambridge of two debut collections –
Andrew Neils...
Faber, 2015, pp. 341 In this sun, swords and sandals summer of Hellenic
excess, now is the perfect time to revisit Christopher Logue’s War Music
but, if yo...
Am I meant to have an opinion on the Odyssey? I haven’t seen it yet, and
haven’t read it for a while so I’ll reserve judgment. To be fair a) that
may be on...
*“If there is one overarching theme in Canada’s story, it is of distinct
peoples thrown together in a shared environment”*
The title is unusually exact....
I haven’t had much time for reading lately. Poems and stories I’ve read in
the past pop into my head a lot though. Mallarmé’s ‘Brise marine’ is one of
thos...
Do you remember the first stories you heard? Perhaps they were told by the
person looking after you, or they were read to you from books your parents
had l...
Do you remember the first stories you heard? Perhaps they were told by the
person looking after you, or they were read to you from books your parents
had l...
The error that Richard Dawkins made in The Selfish Gene and has continued
to make over the 50 years since it was first published, is an error of
poetry. ...
The Wombwell Rainbow is putting out a call for unpublished poems and short
prose on your local neglected water courses. What history, geology,
industry has...
Here’s something I wrote around that time, beautifully performed by the
amazing actor Nichole Bird for Live Canon Poetry (it was shortlisted in
their open ...
I counteach step, each breath, each pull, or lift, or hold;I countin sets
of twoor four, of five or eight or ten.Quantifying movement,we measure the
time c...
Tulips in Cwmdonkin Park, Swansea
14 May is #dylanday, a day to remember Dylan Thomas. I am posting this as
part of a Facebook celebration initiated by...
Wow! It's been a while since I've posted in here!
In this modern age of Substacks, Bluesky, Insta ect etc the humble blog
seems incredibly retro. I s...
My blog has been rather neglected of late, in part because of my low energy
levels, followed by cataract surgery and then a nasty chest infection, but
I am...
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...
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...
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