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.
This week I have the pleasure of inviting award-winning poet , Louise
Machen, to reflect on her new collection, I Am Not Light (Black Bough
Poetry, 2025). ...
Rishi Dastidar has always been an accessible and entertaining poet, with
asides in satire and political comment. Since his last book, however, he
seems to ...
The Bio Zoe Brooks lives in Gloucestershire, England. Her long poem for
voices Fool’s Paradise won the Electronic Publishing Industry Coalition
award for b...
I spent the weekend before last with my brother Adrian at his home in Bath,
which is the longest period of time we’ve spent together for donkey’s years
and...
Previous, Peter Dent, High Tide Editions, 2025Hippogryphia: 36 Variables,
Peter Dent, treadmill, 2019 Peter Dent’s Previous consists of five titled
short p...
The Withlacoochee is a river in Florida. Frederick Kirwin’s book is a long
sequence of untitled poems that only appear on the right hand side, leaving
the ...
John Bunyan wrote *The Pilgrim's Progress* while he was imprisoned in
Bedford jail. I've not visited his museum yet.
The Panacea Society have a museum wh...
In the intro to Margaret Atwood’s Selected Poems (1965 to 1975) she states
there is a “lot of burnt toast in the lives of poets” (our words to that
effect....
I was very pleased to see my poem Canada is as far away as bibles are on
After. Many thanks to Editor Mark Antony Owen. You can read the poem here.
After p...
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...
My old, much-loved friend, George Papavgeris, died this week. Once we hit
our seventies we perhaps expect to accept the death of friends a little
more read...
Here…
...and it was so beautiful. Imagine!
There are landscapes I’ve never been in before, and this was one. A high
lake in Sweden, frozen to 40-50 cm ...
Today is World Book Day 2026, and while the day is primarily intended for
children and young people, it seems sense to broaden the boundaries.
The co...
*"So unprepared were most people; so little did a large part of Denmark’s
population understand what had happened; so little had a majority grasped
the ...
David Lanoue’s book, Mindful Renku, has just come in for review, and I
found the above to be incredibly accurate! Lanoue reads it as rejuvenation,
the spri...
Fifty-odd years ago Herbert Lomas, a lovely man and very good poet,
published a book suggesting that we could solve a lot of problems by just
getting rid...
This review – or a shortened version of it – first appeared in The Times
Literary Supplement, 25th December 2025. Many thanks to Camille Ralphs for
commiss...
Roads go ever on and on, Over rock and under tree, By caves where never
sun has shone, By streams that never find the sea; Over snow by winter
sown, A...
Since my last post about the huge spike in this site’s visitors and views
(up over 500%) I’m pretty sure that it’s not my content but another, more
malicio...
I’ve never warmed to Shelley as a man, and when I’ve tried reading his
poetry in bulk I’ve found the process curiously unsatisfying. This is odd:
his writi...
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...
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...
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